Not long after the sad passing of Rock/Pop legend, Prince last week, I (that is, me – Matt Sergiou) received an e-mail from Mark Devlin, the DJ/presenter and premier public-speaker on all manner of subjects linked to the dark, occult workings of the music-industry. He asked me if I’d be at all interested in guesting on a hastily-arranged volume of his ‘Good Vibrations’ series of pod-casts, in response to the news of the famous musician’s departure. Accepting his kind offer, we eventually hooked-up via the wonders of ‘Skype’ not long later on April 25th – just four days after reports first broke of Prince’s exit. Joining us in what’s actually a three-way conversation and trade-of-thoughts is none other than well-renowned, veteran researcher, Freeman. He gives us his unique take on the music-star’s life and passing based on his famed knowledge of the occult and arcane. For example, he notes the esoteric and ritualistic significance of purple, a colour that’s synonymous with the musician thanks in large part, of course, to ‘Purple Rain,’ the album and movie that catapulted him into Pop superstardom in 1984. Is this relevant? Well – yes, it certainly could be when you take into account what’s discussed in the pod-cast with regards to the ‘Typhonian Trilogy,’ a series of books by Kenneth Grant, the now-deceased but former high-ranking figure within the ‘O.T.O.’ (‘Ordo Templi Orientis’), the occult order which was once spearheaded by perhaps its most infamous of members, Aleister Crowley, a man who – as you’ll no doubt be aware – was an influence on a number of famous music-stars including, most notably, Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, and the very-recently departed David Bowie.

Freeman & Mark Devlin

In Freeman’s words, “Typhon is the Lord of the Abyss. He is Leviathan, he is all those things inside the Bible – of what lives in the abyss… In the abyss are the fallen angels, the excrement… and Typhon.” If you’re interested to learn how this might connect in some relevant form to the passing of Prince – the oft dubbed, ‘Purple One,’ do please listen to the pod-cast. You most probably won’t be surprised to discover upon doing so that the subject of Typhon and Grant’s trilogies are mentioned in the same breath as – in the words of Freeman again – “blood sacrifice” and “high profile rituals.” This, of course, helps lend fuel to the possibility that the musician was the victim of a dark, ritualistic, sacrificial killing. This scenario is made all the more potent by the fact that his death was announced on the day of the Queen of England’s 90th birthday, which was, interestingly enough, apparently marked by tributes of a purple-coloured nature. We discuss this briefly in the pod-cast and also acknowledge that all of this has occurred during a time in the year where we were leading up to the much-dreaded festival of Beltane when, Freeman says, there’s “the blood sacrifice of the beast.” Furthermore, and as noted by countless researchers of an ‘Alternative’ nature over the years, he reminds us that “when we look to the dates… this April 19th to April 20th, 21st era in time-zone, there are so many seeming ritual sacrifices.”
With this in mind, it’s worth noting at this point that there’s mention during the pod-cast of the apparent contradictions in what we’re being told in the mainstream media with regards to the cause of Prince’s death and how he’s generally perceived to have lived his life. After all, as both Freeman and Mark point out, we’ve been led to believe over the years that the music-star was a health-conscious vegan, a non-drug user, a Jehovah’s Witness, and, I‘d like to add here, a tee-totaller apparently. But this doesn’t tally with the MSM’s reporting of his death which has so far presented us with a constantly-changing version of events, most of which have strongly suggested that he was battling illness or some form of issues connected to prescribed medication. Initially, and as Mark points out in the pod-cast with – I suspect – a tongue a little in cheek, we were told by the mainstream that “he just happened to collapse in an elevator after having the flu at the age of 57.” Since recording this pod-cast, the flu stories have been superseded by reports that he was a victim of AIDS no less. Of course, it’s still way too early in the day to be forming definite conclusions as to what may have contributed to Prince’s passing – indeed, as is the case throughout history when we look at the deaths of high-profile, famous individuals – we might never truly know. Be that as it may though, the MSM, with its dizzying and thus-far ever-escalating array of claims and reports will – as a result – have done little to dampen the suspicions of those of us who’re questioning the mainstream version of events and who are leaning toward the possibility that foul-play might very well have been the cause. Whether Prince met with a grisly, violent end in keeping with the occult, sacrificial practises that Freeman outlines, and/or if it was an evil, cynical manoeuvre on behalf of the corporate ‘Powers That Be’ to somehow claw back ownership of the musician’s lucrative master-tapes which he’d seized control of in 2014, is anyone’s guess at this stage. It’s no secret that he’d been involved in a monumental dispute with his former record company, ‘Warner Bros.,’ a spat which gained him a significant degree of infamy when, in the 1990s, he appeared in public with the word, ‘slave’ inscribed on his face and also changed his name to, (otherwise referred to as, ‘Symbol’). All of this is discussed during the pod-cast, as is his very vocal and very candid views on the nasty machinations of the music-industry.

The moniker is elaborated on in the pod-cast at some length, actually. We get the ‘Freeman perspective’ on the possible occult connotations attached to ‘the symbol’ which, in fact, was one of many alter-egos adopted by Prince during his illustrious career. I get into some of the details of this, putting forward the suggestion that what we might be dealing with here is yet another case in a long line of music-artists suffering from the effects of MK ULTRA/trauma-based mind-control. There’s certainly data available that hints at this. But then again, there’s also the possibility that these multiple personas were – in Mark’s words – “some kind of demonic possession”?

As discussed in the pod-cast, glass pyramids on the roof of Prince’s Paisley Park studio-complex. Notice the one with the cap-stone? The musician is known to have expressed an interest in Egyptian history.

During the pod-cast, we also focus very briefly on the days directly leading up to the news breaking of Prince’s death, when there were highly suggestive indications from him and his camp that they/he somehow knew what was coming. Yet another intriguing puzzle there. What we can be sure of is this though: He was a one-of-a-kind. I mean – just one example – how many Pop superstars do you recall who have openly discussed the issue of chemtrails? Here’s the musician in an interview from a few years back (from 2011, if I’m not mistaken?)…

In the three-way pod-cast, which was originally released online on April 26th, we also raise the issue of 9/11, given that it has specific relevance to Prince. Plus, Freeman waxes lyrical on the thematic, occultic parallels that can be drawn from other high-profile artists such as Katy Perry, and Madonna – the last-surviving of the four ultimate music superstars of the 1980s.

Listen to the pod-cast here:

Here’s some relevant links that might be of interest to you?… First off, you can check out Freeman’s work here:

Back in June this year, Mark Devlin – the UK’s leading speaker on the occult/conspiratorial elements within the entertainment industry – published a pod-cast in which he chats with prominent researcher, Tina Foster of ‘Plastic Macca,‘ the blog which looks into evidence of Paul McCartney’s alleged ‘death’ in 1966. There’s also contributions during the conversation from ’Conspiro Media’ – or, in other words – me; Matt Sergiou.

If you choose to take a listen to the pod-cast (available below), you’ll hear Tina talking us through many of the ‘clues’ alluding to this decades-old theory and that are said to be found in occult form on Beatles and solo McCartney album and single covers, and more blatantly in sound via backwards messages on songs. She also cites a number of physical differences between the ‘real’ Paul and the ‘impostor’ Paul (A.K.A. ‘Faul’) that she says can be seen when comparing photographs and footage prior to 1966 and after, when he was said to have been replaced. She highlights the research of two Italians, Francesco Gavazzeni and known forensic pathologist, Gabriella Carlesi who together have studied the facial features of the pre and post-’death’ McCartney and concluded that there is indeed a definite difference between the two that cannot be dismissed. Then there’s the apparent anomalies surrounding the long-contested paternity battle between the former Beatle and a German woman who claims she gave birth to their daughter in the early 1960s. In 1984, Erika Hubers alleged that a blood-sample taken from McCartney for examination in a court-case that she launched against him at the time to prove he was the father was not in fact McCartney’s but an impostor’s. Indeed, during the pod-cast, Tina talks about the use of decoys and doubles in the ‘Paul Is Dead’ (‘P.I.D.‘) conspiracy. She also revisits the comments made in 2007 by Heather Mills who told the world’s media that she’d discovered a ‘terrible secret’ about Paul her then soon-to-be ex-husband.
The circumstances surrounding the ‘death’ of McCartney in ‘66 are discussed during the pod-cast too. Tina doesn’t subscribe to the widely-cited claim that the music-legend died as a result of a car accident. She’s of the view that he was ‘bumped-off’ by the Powers That Be and then replaced by a more NWO-friendly version, one perhaps that wouldn’t question the globalist agenda to corrupt the world’s youth, most notably in the promotion of widespread drug-use during the late 1960s.

Personally, I’ve remained largely sceptical of P.I.D. However, my mind is open and in no way dismissive towards the theory in principle. As I say during the pod-cast; although there isn’t enough evidence on offer to convince me that Paul is most definitely dead, I do feel there’s plenty of signs to indicate that “something untoward” is going on (… smoke, but not necessarily a fire as such). I expressed my thoughts on this (to some extent) in the closing paragraphs of an article on ’Conspiro Media’ back in May 2012:

During the pod-cast, I raise some questions that I and possibly others who’re sceptical towards P.I.D. have posed over the years, such as; how is it that not one member of the ‘original’ Paul’s family back in Liverpool have ever come out publicly to expose the fraud? Surely someone in the McCartney clan has noted the change in appearance, if not in personality? Actually, Tina, Mark and I are in agreement when it comes to the ex-Beatle’s behaviour in recent years, behaviour that’s resulted in him becoming a shoulder-rubber with the so-called ‘elites’ in politics and royalty, and – so it would appear – an advocate of their dark agenda also. The pod-cast ends with us speculating as to whether the secret to this decades-old mystery will ever be revealed, or will it remain a theory that goes with everyone to their graves?

Be sure also to take a listen to Mark’s ‘Good Vibrations’ series of pod-cast interviews with many of the world’s leading ‘Alternative’ researchers and speakers who discuss a variety of issues and topics:

You might also be interested to learn that Mark will be talking about the dark, occult machinations of the music-industry at the live event, ‘Cornwall Awake!’ on Saturday November 22nd 2014:

A new book examining the occult motifs contained within popular films such as ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ and ‘Fight Club,’ as well as in the ‘Lord of the Rings’ series and the ‘Back to the Future’ trilogy is now available, and ‘Conspiro Media’ has interviewed the author for an up-close-and-personal perspective.
Why is James Bond’s numerical designation, ‘007’? Where does the name ‘Luke Skywalker’ come from? What’s the deadly bunny rabbit in Monty Python’s ’Holy Grail’ film representative of?… These are just some of the questions that are discussed with Robert W. Sullivan IV, the man behind, ‘Cinema Symbolism: A Guide to Esoteric Imagery in Popular Movies.’
Born and currently based in the US State of Maryland, 43-year-old Sullivan is a lawyer, jurist, historian, theologian, and antiquarian. In 1997, he joined Amicable-St. John’s Lodge #25, Baltimore, and, in 1999, became a 32nd degree Scottish Rite Mason (‘Valley of Baltimore, Orient of Maryland’). His first published work was 2012’s ‘The Royal Arch of Enoch: The Impact of Masonic Ritual, Philosophy, and Symbolism.’ This book – in his own words – “presents a real-life ‘Da Vinci Code / National Treasure’ mystery which, until the publication of this book, was previously unknown to history and historians in both the East and West.” The result of over twenty years of research, it “documents an undiscovered historical anomaly: How a high-degree Masonic ritual – developed in France in the mid-1700s – included elements of the ‘Book of Enoch’ (AKA I Enoch) which was considered lost until Freemason and traveller, James Bruce returned to Europe with copies from Ethiopia in 1773. This high-degree ritual titled, ‘The Royal Arch of Enoch,’ documents the recovery of the ‘lost word of a Master Mason,’ the Name of God.” It “also documents the symbolic restoration of the sun as the premier icon in all of Freemasonry.” Allegories pertaining to the sun are, as you might expect, at the core of ‘Cinema Symbolism.’ Sullivan talks about this during the ‘Conspiro Media’ interview, detailing the overarching solar motifs that are the inspiration for many of our best-loved and known movie characters and plotlines. They’re referencing ancient legends and myths associated with, what he describes in his new book as, “the idolatrous worship of the solar great father.” This inevitably leads us into the realm of astrotheology where the story of Jesus is revealed to be a metaphor symbolising the journey of the sun as it makes its way through each house of the zodiac from a northern hemisphere perspective beginning at the Spring/vernal equinox point (March 20th/21st) when its power and influence on the Earth starts to strengthen. Sullivan writes in his introduction, “the adoration and worship of the sun is the sign of Pisces in Christianity. For example, Jesus walks on water and washes feet since Pisces is a water sign that rules the feet. Jesus has also 12 Apostles who are the 12 houses of the zodiac anthropomorphised. Within occult Christianity, Jesus is the ‘sun of God’ who is dead and buried at the winter solstice (December 20th-22nd) only to be resurrected at the vernal equinox culminating with the ‘Easter’ celebration of the sun emerging from the three-month tomb of winter announcing longer days and warmer weather.” In movies, Sullivan tells ‘Conspiro Media,’ the sun is Neo from ‘The Matrix’ and Chance the gardener in the Oscar-winning 1979 film ‘Being There’ with Peter Sellers (to name but only two). Then there’s the counter-balance of the moon – the “lunar great mother.” This can be seen in the Princess Leia character in 1977’s ‘Star Wars,’ a heroine-figure who wears white robes “personifying the moon’s nocturnal brilliance.”

Robert’s new book.

‘Cinema Symbolism,’ also delves into movies that are immersed in iconography linked to numerology, the Tarot, alchemy, Freemasonry, and the doctrines of Gnosticism (which is a word taken from the ancient Greek, γνωστικός; ’gnostigos’ / ’learned’ from ’gnosis’; ’knowledge’). As Sullivan states in his book-intro, “Gnostic ideas influenced many ancient religions which teach that gnosis – variously interpreted as knowledge, enlightenment, salvation, emancipation or oneness with God – may be reached by practising philanthropy to the point of personal poverty, sexual abstinence and diligently searching for wisdom by helping others.”
In the ‘Conspiro Media’ interview (available directly below), Robert gives us his take on a number of films including ‘Black Swan’ and ‘The Omen’ and ‘Matrix’ trilogies, as well as the aforementioned ‘Star Wars‘ and James Bond series, ‘Being There,‘ and ‘Holy Grail.‘ In fact, he talks at some length about the Monty Python comedy-team and the very strong likelihood that they were (and are) very ‘switched-in’ to occult ideas, as was 007 creator, Ian Fleming incidentally.
He also talks about Bram Stoker’s Dracula in relation to Theosophy and Helena Blavatsky, the influence of occultists Aleister Crowley and John Dee in the world of entertainment, and the oft-asked question – that being; why exactly do top directors, producers, and screenwriters blanket their movies in occult symbolism?…

The first instalment of the three-part ‘Conspiro Media’ Rolling Stones retrospective was published in March last year and covers the period from the band’s first gig in 1962 through to the controversial events surrounding the ‘Redlands’ drug-bust in 1967. If you haven’t yet read the article or would like to reacquaint yourself with it, you can find it in the link directly below. It charts their meteoric and well publicised rise to infamy when they were labelled the bad boys of Pop and when certain members of the group pursued a not so widely reported interest in the occult; namely Brian Jones along with his then-girlfriend, the model, actress, and enthusiast of witchcraft, Anita Pallenberg. Mick Jagger and his partner, Marianne Faithfull meanwhile were involved briefly with the Process Church of the Final Judgement, a religious group founded by former Scientologists and which has since been linked directly to Charles Manson and the grisly Tate/LaBianca murders of 1969.

The article ends with a brief reference to the Stones’ album, ‘Their Satanic Majesties Request’ the title of which, according to their official website, “took its inspiration… from the words inside a British passport, ‘Her Britannic Majesty’s Secretary of State requests and requires…’” The renowned Rock music author, Philip Norman states in his book, ‘The Stones: The Definitive Biography,’ that Jagger actually wanted to name it ‘Her Satanic Majesty Requests and Requires’ but was prevented from doing so by his record company which “refused to sanction so blatant a slur on the Queen.” Apparently, the singer came up with this title when he was still “touched by lingering anti-Establishment rancour” in the wake of the ‘Redlands’ controversy which had pitted him and Keith Richards against the police, the judiciary, and consequently, the penal system. On the face of it, Norman’s account appears plausible enough. However, if you’re aware of the allegations that have been made by numerous authors, researchers, and journalists outside of the mainstream media as to the dark, disgusting exploits of the British Royal Family, then one might be tempted to wonder whether the Stones front-man was secretly alluding to something far more sinister in his proposed title?
The album was released in the final month of 1967, the year of the so-called ’Summer of Love’ when western popular culture drew influence from San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district, the centre-point of the burgeoning global hippie community. Its soundtrack was supplied by a new wave of psychedelic-friendly bands including the Grateful Dead, and the Jefferson Airplane as well as more established groups such as The Beatles, most notably via their much-lauded “masterpiece,” ‘Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ which was unleashed right in the middle of it all. It would seem this album’s rich tapestry of colourful soundscapes, ranging from the orchestral high drama on ‘A Day in the Life’ to the dreamy instrumentation of ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ with its lyrics pertaining to “tangerine trees” and “marmalade skies,” was an ideal accompaniment to the times, especially when you consider the fact that both these tracks are said to make reference to LSD, the drug that helped shape the Haight-Ashbury scene in ’67 and which was promoted by individuals such as Dr. Timothy Leary who that same year called on some twenty to thirty thousand people at a mass gathering in San Francisco to “turn on, tune in, and drop out.” In past posts, ‘Conspiro Media’ has briefly explored claims that this former Harvard psychology lecturer and researcher of hallucinogens was, in his role as Acid guru and leading light of what has come to be known as the 1960s ’counter-culture,’ part of a CIA-backed plot to control a generation of youths through the mass-distribution and promotion of mind-altering substances which would not only render them too ’stoned’ to be an effective opposition to the Vietnam War, but alienate them from their elders and, as a consequence, help to destabilise and dismantle the fabric of society.

Timothy Leary

This’ll be examined at greater length in the third instalment of this three-part retrospective, although it is worth noting at this juncture that another ingredient in this alleged plot was the introduction of New Age philosophies into mainstream consciousness, thus clearing a path for the as-yet unrealised One World religion. Taking this into consideration, is it then merely a ‘coincidence’ that Leary, a self-confessed “pagan” who once stated that “drugs are the religion of the 21st century,“ would form his very own religion in 1966, the ’League for Spiritual Discovery’ (yes, that’s right… ’L.S.D.’ for short)? Whatever, there’s no denying that folks in Haight-Ashbury and elsewhere in the western part of the planet during the second half of the 1960s were looking beyond the doctrines and confines of the organised Christian Church and towards the east for alternative forms of spirituality, which The Beatles are often credited for popularising, especially George Harrison. The lyrics to the one track he contributed to ‘Sgt. Pepper’ evoked this prevailing mood. On the sitar-laden ‘Within You Without You’ he sings of “the love we all could share,” and, “with our love we could save the world… Try to realise it’s all within yourself… and life flows on within you and without you.” Reviewing the album at the time of its release, the noted British critic and writer, Kenneth Tynan stated it was “a decisive moment in the history of western civilisation.” Now, if you’ve read the first instalment of this article, you’ll recall that the Rolling Stones were marketed by their management during the early half of the 1960s as the direct opponents of The Beatles. It’s a rivalry that’s kept alive to this day by music fans and journalists the world over in a never-ending debate as to which of the two bands truly deserve to be called “the greatest.” There‘s also a widely held view that back in ‘67, ‘Satanic Majesties’ was an attempt to emulate or even out-dazzle the almighty ‘Sgt. Pepper,‘ and perhaps grab some of that counter-cultural kudos attached to it too. After all, for starters, it was the first (and last) time, The Stones effectively ditched their Blues / R&B-based sound and recorded an all-psychedelic album. Then there’s the front-cover which does perhaps bear more than a passing resemblance to The Beatles’ groundbreaking artwork. Incidentally, the renowned photographer, Michael Cooper who, as it just so happens was friends with both bands and had worked on ‘Sgt. Pepper,’ was called in for ‘Satanic Majesties.’

SPOT THE DIFFERENCE?… The ‘Sgt. Pepper’ and ‘Satanic Majesties’ albums.

According to Keith Richards in his 2010 memoirs, ‘Life,‘ “it was time for another Stones album, and Sgt. Pepper’s was coming out, so we thought basically we were doing a put-on.” Furthermore, during a 2003 interview in which he looked back on The Stones’ hands-on involvement in the designing of the set for the album-cover photo-shoot, he reportedly said, “we went to New York with Michael Cooper… we built the set on Acid, went all round New York getting the flowers and the rest of the props; we were painting it, spraying it. We were just loony, and after The Beatles had done ‘Sgt. Pepper,’ it was like, let’s get even more ridiculous.”

The Stones making the cover for ‘Their Satanic Majesties Request’ in New York, 1967.

“We were on Acid doing the cover picture. I always remember doing that. It was like being at school, you know, sticking on the bits of coloured paper and things. It was really silly. But we enjoyed it.” – Mick Jagger. ‘Rolling Stone’ Magazine – 1995.

Keith Richards has been quoted as saying of the front-cover design, “Michael Cooper was in charge of the whole thing, under his leadership. It was handicrafts day… you make Saturn, and I’ll make the rings.” Ah, yes. “Saturn,” or otherwise referred to as, “Satan.” In his 2008 best-seller, ‘The Secret History of the World,‘ Jonathan Black, a lifelong enthusiast of ancient esoteric knowledge who claims to have written his book with the assistance of a high-ranking secret society member states that, “Satan, the Dark Lord, the agent of materialism, is to be identified with the god of the planet Saturn in Greek and Roman mythology.” He also sheds light on the ringed planet’s role in The Creation of the universe as told in the Bible and based upon the beliefs of the fraternal orders but hidden from the uninitiated eye beneath a cloak of allegories. It goes without saying, the so-called “ruling elites” stand accused of keeping this secret knowledge from the rest of us, force-feeding us instead with the falsities of organised religion, and locking humanity within a world of ignorance, fear, and racial/cultural intolerance as a result.
Black writes:

Science and religion agree that in the beginning the cosmos moved from a state of nothingness to the existence of matter. But science has very little to say about this mysterious transition, all of it highly speculative. By contrast, there was remarkable unanimity among the initiate priests of the ancient world. Their secret teachings are encoded in the sacred texts of the world’s great religions… A secret history of creation is encoded in the most familiar of these texts, Genesis… its phrases can be opened up to reveal extraordinary new worlds of thought, mighty vistas of the imagination. In the beginning there precipitated out of the void matter that was finer and more subtle than light. Then came an unexceptionally fine gas. If a human eye had been looking at the dawn of history, it would have seen a vast cosmic mist. This gas or mist was the Mother of All Living, carrying everything needed for the creation of life… in the beginning ‘the Earth was without form and void.‘ The Bible narrative continues: ‘Darkness was upon the face of the Earth.’ According to Biblical commentators working within the esoteric tradition, this is the Bible’s way of saying that the Mother Goddess was attacked by a searing dry wind that almost extinguished the potential for life altogether. Again, to the human eye it would have looked as if the gently interweaving mists that had first emanated from the mind of God were suddenly overtaken by a second emanation. There was a violent storm like some rare and spectacular phenomenon observed by astronomers – the death of a star, perhaps – except that there here in the beginning it would have been on a completely overwhelming scale that filled the entire universe. So this is what it would have looked like to a physical eye, but to the eye of imagination this great cloud mist and the terrible storm that attacked it can be seen to cloak two gigantic phantoms. The Mother Goddess would often be remembered as a loving, life-giving and nurturing figure, comfortingly round and soft-looking, but she also had a terrifying aspect. She was warlike when needs be. Her opponent was, if anything, more frightening. Long and bony, his skin was a scaly white and he had glowing, red eyes. Swooping low over Mother Earth, the Dark Lord was armed with a deadly scythe. For if the first emanation from the mind of God would metamorphose into the goddess of the Earth, the second emanation would become the god of Saturn. Saturn would trace the limits of the solar system. In fact he was the very principal of limitation. What Saturn’s intervention introduced into creation was the potential for individual objects to exist – and therefore the transition from formlessness to form. In other words, because of Saturn there is a law of identity in the universe by which something exists and is nothing else and neither is anything else it. If an individual entity can exist through time, then by implication it can cease to exist too. This is why Saturn is the god of destruction. Saturn eats his own children. He is sometimes portrayed as Old Father Time and sometimes Death himself.

‘Saturn Devouring His Son’ by Francisco Goya. (18th century)

Because of Saturn’s influence everything that lives contains the seeds of its own end, and it is because of Saturn that what feeds us also destroys us. Because of Saturn every sword is double-edged and every crown a crown of thorns. If we sometimes feel our lives almost too hard to bear, if we bruise and if we do cry out to the stars in despair, it is because Saturn pushes us to our limits. In Genesis the Evil One’s attempt to nullify God’s plans at birth, this first act of rebellion of a Thought-Being against the Mind that emanated it, is dealt with in one short phrase. Saturn’s tyranny over Mother Earth, his murderous attempt to squeeze all potential for life out of the cosmos, continued over vast periods immeasurable to the human mind. His tyranny was eventually overthrown, and Saturn, if not entirely defeated, was kept in check and confined to the proper sphere. Again, Genesis tells us how this came about: ‘And God said Let there be light, and there was light.’ Light was pushing back the darkness that had been brooding over the waters. The second great act in the drama of creation comes about when the sun god arrives in order to rescue Mother Earth from Saturn. In the eye of the imagination the sun is a beautiful and radiant young man with a leonine mane. He rides a chariot and he is a musician. He has many names – Krishna in India, Apollo in Greece. Arising in splendour in the midst of the storm, he pushes back the darkness of Saturn until it becomes like a giant dragon or serpent encircling the cosmos. The sun then warms Mother Earth into new life, and as he does so, he gives vent to a great, triumphal roar that reverberates to the outer limits of the cosmos. The roar causes matter in the cosmic womb to vibrate, to dance and form patterns. After a while it causes matter to coagulate into a variety of strange shapes. What we are seeing here, then, is the sun singing the world into existence.

Of course, the claim is, secret knowledge such as this isn’t only to be found in ‘Genesis.’ For centuries, scholars far too numerous to list here have argued that the entire Bible from start to finish is nothing but planetary, solar, lunar and stellar observances according to the ancients but hidden behind a mask of allegories and fictional characters. In the New Testament for example, the cycle of the seasons and the hours of the day are depicted through the movements of God’s son (sun), Jesus “the light bringer,” all powerful in summer but in constant opposition with his enemy, Satan A.K.A. Saturn, the ruler of the underworld where winter and darkness prevails. The graph below adapted from the astronomical symbol for the Earth (represented by a circle and – as it just so happens – a cross): illustrates how this works. Designed by ‘Conspiro Media’ specially for this article, it’s based on the teachings of world-respected astrotheologist, Santos Bonacci. It’s divided into twelve segments, each with its own planet and star-sign. It can either be read as a calendar charting the seasons from a northern hemisphere perspective, or a 24-hour clock chronicling night and day. The top half, beginning at the spring equinox / 6 a.m. point through to the autumnal equinox / 6 p.m. position, charts the sun’s dominance. The bottom half marks its descent. Bonacci says it’s “the cycle that causes The Gospels to be told” and “the physical graph that allows us to peer into the spiritual.”

Astrotheology-wheel based on the teachings of Santos Bonacci. (CLICK TO ENLARGE).

March 21st is when “most of the cycles begin in the year” Santos says, and it’s where it’s in close proximity with the Jewish religious festival of the Passover which is supposedly commemorating the emancipation of the Israelites from slavery in ancient Egypt during the time of Moses. In actual fact, proclaims veteran researcher, lecturer, and author of the occult, Jordan Maxwell, “the ancient peoples a thousand years before Hebrews ever existed, celebrated the first week of spring and they called it the ’Passover.’ The Passover is the sun passing over the equator on its way back to the northern hemisphere… The first week of spring was called the ‘Passover’ because the sun which was dead and winter is now passing over into a new life in spring. But of course, Christians could not have anything to do with the Passover because obviously that’s Jewish and we wouldn’t want anything to do with that. So consequently we say that God’s son is ‘resurrected.’ Doesn’t matter if you call it ‘resurrected,’ or ‘passed over,’ or ‘coming back to life,’ it’s still the sun is passing over. It’s resurrected, it’s coming back.” Santos Bonacci says, “the sun is in its zenith in Cancer. He is most influential. This is the point occupied by glory – glory of the sun. It’s a glorious position. It’s Jesus coming into Jerusalem and being enthroned as king.” The sun then descends through Leo and Virgo and “drops below the equator. So sun goes bye-byes for six months and in the north, the winter months come.” During this period when “there is more darkness than light,” he is “obstructed in his vitality and his ability to give us that summer energy, to revitalise the season so that we can eat and live.” And so, Bonacci argues, “you see how the sun is our saviour, how Jesus is our saviour?” Of course, Saturn/Satan is “always there” ready “to kill the light of the sun” down below in what Santos calls, “the inferior regions. In fact,” he adds, “‘inferior’ is how the Latins call winter: ‘Inverno.’ And in fact, ‘infernal’ – ‘hell’ – is ‘inferno.’ Just replace the ‘V’ for an ‘F.’ ‘Infernal’ – hell – supposed to be hot, is actually another word for ‘inverno,’ which is ‘winter.’” Indeed, according to Bonacci, the sun meets its death on December 21st, which just so happens to coincide with the Winter Solstice – the shortest day of the year. On this date “we have the holy Saturnalia and the Christmas period.” In ancient Rome, the Saturnalia was “one of the most famous Bacchic orgies of history. Revelries. Absolute revelry time.” Saturn’s association with revelry apparently lives on. Bonacci says, “the seventh day of the week is associated with Saturn, it’s called Saturn-day, right? Saturday. And what usually happens on that day? Would that be the weekend? The day of revorie?… You know?… Saturday Night Fever and ‘let’s go out Saturday night, boys. Let’s go out on the tiles,’ right?”

Santos Bonacci.

He continues, “It’s always ‘Saturn the bad boy.’ Aries rules from six till eight. Taurus, eight to ten. Gemini rules ten to twelve. Cancer rules twelve to two. Right on cue we have Saturn turning up at midnight. And what happens after midnight?… He gets from twelve till four. This is… a time of revelry where things happen… thieves do their work at night… Saturn rules the night.” However, as Bonacci points out, along with the sun, moon, Venus, Mars, Mercury, and Jupiter, Saturn is vital for life on Earth for “everything that you see – everything – every material shape that is in your eyesight is manifested by those seven. Those seven orbs in our solar system. Without them – no manifestation. Take away the sun? We’re gone. Take away the moon? Jupiter? Any one of them. We’re gone.” But, the ringed planet is Satan. He is the epitome of evil, the figurehead of black magic rituals and blood-curdling sacrifice, right? Well, for a greater insight into this, there’s the 1960 pamphlet, ‘Magic. A Treatise on Esoteric Ethics’ written by 33rd Degree Freemason and renowned scholar of the occult, Manly Palmer Hall. In this essay he also makes note of Lucifer who’s identified in the Christian tradition the same as the Devil:

Manly Palmer Hall.

For ages, Man has laboured under a misunderstanding. He has called the perversion of occult power black magic. This is an improper use of the world black, for black does not mean evil. Black is the basic not-colour of all things; it is the source of all being, and represents the body of the Absolute Intelligence. All consciousness and light are born out of the chaotic blackness, and Kosmic Night, with its dark pralaya, is the Father-Mother of creation. Black darkness must forever shroud the workings of the Infinite, and no matter how much light there is in the human soul, it is forever surrounded with the dark, seething substances of chaos. All manifestation is a concretion of dark and unmeasured possibility. The Children of the Dark Birth who labour in the blackness of this substance, moulding it into myriads of unseen and unmeasured forms, are not evil. They are the sons of Saturn (Satan), the Black Father, who, like the very darkness of chaos itself, must in time swallow all of his creations and, in so doing, bring them back to life again from the death that men call creation. We are all born out of this dark abyss and have no right to call it evil. It is the parent of gods and men – and forever wrapped in the unexplorable robes of its own mystery. Out of this blackness, nature’s unfathomed treasure house, man must exhume the stone of his own soul in the same way that the miner removes the diamond from its sheath of black carbon. The dark Lords of Saturn are the builders of the first dawn, the morning of blackness, and from the friction of their strivings were born the first flaming sparks of dawning consciousness. There is a false darkness and a true darkness. The true darkness is the womb of Light; the false darkness, the perversion of the light that pours out of the true darkness. Natural darkness is the basic principle of things, while the false darkness is the result of debasing the power of the angels of Satan. The Devil, the archetype of misuse, is not a son of Saturn, but a son of Man and the false darkness of Earth. Man is the incarnation of the germ of mental intelligence, and black magic is possible only to intelligent beings. Natural darkness is unawakened possibility; false darkness is perverted opportunity. Evil is an abuse or misuse of power. It is the crossing of currents, or an interference with the plan. We may say, as one definition of evil, that is the right thing in the wrong place. The worst evil in nature can be transmuted into good by the simple process of adjustment. The average intelligence of the consciously functioning man is sufficient to make a god out of any demon by the simple process of inversion; likewise, he is capable of making a demon or evil thing out of any good thing or god by placing it in improper relationship to other things. The two Great Demons of Creation are: Satan – Saturn, and Lucifer – Mars (According to the Greeks, Venus).Satan is the spirit of caution, prudence, and when perverted, negation. At his door are laid the sins of omission. Few realise that Man is responsible for the things he has not done. That is part of the law. It is just as wrong not to do the right things as it is to do the wrong thing. Satan inhibits, he draws back, he holds aloof. He is keyed to crystallisation, and his unhampered reign would result in cosmic inertia, for he destroys action. He is symbolised as the reaping skeleton, for he governs the bones of Man and the planets… He is the cold demon of ice that freezes the spirit in the blood, and is given dominion over the tomb of unrealised hopes. Lucifer, on the other hand, is the spirit of excess, the flaming son of rashness and the ruler of sense-gratification, over which he wields dominion with a scepter of serpents. Those who fall victims to his power do deeds of violence, not because he wills it so, but because they have this spirit of energy and pervert him themselves. Lucifer is the light-bringer; he is transmuted by Man as the inspiration of lust and passion – while he would have it used only for the attainment of ideality. Uncurbed, those who fall under the sway of his influence, dash madly to their own destruction. He always is opposed to Satan, seeking to snatch the soul of Man from the cold embrace of Saturn. He is the heat that incubates the soul, but man uses him as a flame to burn up reason. All the powers in nature naturally serve good, but as they are the servants of those capable of wielding authority, Man makes out of them barbarous spirits who damn his own world. Between these two thieves of excess – Satan (utter coldness) and Lucifer (blazing heat) – hangs the spirit of Man. Here is the great truth. Suppose either of these forces which Man has made into demons, were to withdraw – what would happen to the Plan of Being?If Satan were to go out of the scheme, Man would be burned up by the fiery passions of Mars and the angels of Lucifer. Without the chill, caution, and curbing of Saturn, his soul would speedily be lost in utter debauchery and licentiousness. If on the other hand, Lucifer should withdraw, Man would soon be a stone again, incapable of incentive, of motion or emotion, and chained, like the sufferers of ‘Dante’s Inferno,’ by the icy fingers of death. Satan and Lucifer are not evil, but two of the greatest powers in all creation. Without them, the universe could not come into being – for Mars, with the Lucifer angels, is the dynamo of our solar system, and without them, the planets could not keep up their endless march. On the other hand, Satan builds the Earth and worlds by crystallisation, without which we would have no solid substances to form bodies. It is not force or power, but the perversion of force which constitutes evil. We may say: “The Demon is power perverted.” Therefore Man, the perverted of power, is the creator of demons, because he is the lowest creature capable of exercising authority from within his own being.

With regards to Lucifer, Santos Bonacci states, “Venus is phosphorous. She is the bright morning star. And she’s one of the brightest orbs – in fact, she’s the third brightest orb in the sky. Venus – the ruler of Taurus and the most brilliant sight in the evening and morning sky after the moon – was called by the Greeks, ’Phos’… meaning ’light,’ and by the Romans, ’Lucifer – the Light-bearer.’” Furthermore, “to the ancient occultists, Venus was the planet of inner light – illumination.” The respected researcher, public-speaker, and radio-show host, Mark Passio who was once a priest in the notorious ’Church of Satan’ until the moment he experienced what he’s described as “a true conscience,” has said, “the concept of Lucifer… simply means ‘Bringer of Light.’ This is a symbol… there are light and dark Luciferians.” So, what Manly Palmer Hall is telling us in the closing paragraphs above is, you or I can harness the force of Lucifer as an instrument for good or ill, just as we could (for example) with a knife, which can either be used to cut bread and provide sustenance, or to kill and maim. It’s not the knife that’s to blame, but the person. Passio says, “I don’t envisage Satan as a being or an entity. Nor do I envisage Lucifer as a being or an entity. These are forces at work in the world. And these forces wield control over people, over human-beings. And I would go so far as to say they often inhabit humans and put them on strings like puppets so that they will do their bidding… ‘Lucifer,’ the word, is based upon light. ‘Looks’ in Latin means, ‘light.’ And ‘Ferro’… in Latin means ‘to bring, to carry.’ So ‘Lucifer’ is to ‘bring or carry the light.’ It’s a way-shower. A light-bearer. That’s all it really means. And this is a symbol, because light represents knowledge. It represents the ability… to take in, process, and use information accurately… and the dark occultists who are the Luciferians at the higher level have this knowledge. They have this light and they are using it for their own purposes. Well, that information and knowledge can be used for transformative purposes and awakening people as well. It’s the same information. It’s information that has been hidden.” According to Passio, the Church of Satan is very much aligned to ‘the dark.’ Speaking during an interview with ’Red Ice Radio’ in 2012, he called the organisation a “psychopathic filtration system” that worked “with huge international organisations and think-tanks and global institutions that were attempting to really eradicate human freedom throughout the Earth.“ He described it as, “a war on human life.”

Whether you yourself believe Lucifer to be an evil creature that rebelled against God or, alternatively, an illuminating and necessary planetary force in the universe, is, of course, entirely up to you. The aim here isn’t to promote one viewpoint over the other but merely to set the context in preparation for what is to come in this article. After all, Satan/the Devil is going to feature highly in the Rolling Stones story in some shape or form from hereon in so perhaps we should recognise some of the esoteric knowledge that’s available to us, knowledge that particular members of the group might’ve been familiar with and indeed inspired by during the 1960s and early ’70s. Maybe the likes of Jonathan Black, Santos Bonacci, and Manly P. Hall can help us understand why the band, through their music and imagery, associated themselves so publicly with Satan, and also privately in their choice of friends and acquaintances. Who and what motivated them to follow this route?… How far did they actually go with it, and in which direction – the way of the light maybe, or perhaps (as many of you reading this will no doubt suspect) towards the dark? What was their intent?

Here’s some more excerpts from Manly P. Hall’s ‘Magic…’ pamphlet:

Magic is the art of manipulating the unseen forces of nature. The black magician’s motto is: ‘Might is right’ (survival of the fittest). The white magician’s motto is: ‘Right is might’ (survival of all).

Black magic is the use of spiritual powers to gratify animal or selfish proclivities. White magic is the right use of spiritual power, consciously and objectively. Grey magic is the unconscious or subconscious perversion of power.Yellow magic is the failure to learn how to prevent the perversion of power.

Every living person is one of these four classes. It is important that each should analyse himself and see just which class he is in. Motive is the key to the problem of magic. Even the greatest of white magicians can become a degenerate in an instant if his motive becomes unworthy. The white magician serves humanity; the black magician seeks to serve himself. There are two kinds of black magicians: (1) those who use the demons of the astral plane for their villainy, which they invoke through necromancy and invocation; and (2) those who create their own demons and launch them against the world. The first group does the greatest harm to the world, but the second injure themselves more. The first group is composed mostly of conscious black magicians, while there are many in the second group who are totally ignorant of what they are doing. Some never learn their mistake until the demons they have created come back to the persons who sent them forth. The white magician… is a builder – not a destroyer – and seeks to liberate rather than to dominate his fellow creatures. The white magician has dedicated his soul to the immortal light, while the black magician has sold his for mortal glory.

In an interview during the early-to-mid ‘90s with the magazine, ’Rolling Stone’ (no direct relation, of course), Mick Jagger did mention in passing that he and his fellow Stones had “played around” with ‘black magic imagery’ on ‘Satanic Majesties,’ “but it wasn’t really put into words.” It seems that’s all he had to say on the matter, which is unfortunate because he’s not actually telling us anything conclusive. His recollection is all too brief, lacking in detail, and non-specific. What does he mean exactly when he talks of ’playing around’? Is he implying that it was all just a bit of fun, nothing to be suspicious of? If we’re to believe what his then-girlfriend, Marianne Faithfull has divulged in her memoirs, apparently the answer to that would be, ‘yes.’ She states, “Mick is far too sensible and normal ever to have got seriously involved with black magic.”

Marianne Faithfull.

Assuming – even if only for a second or two – that his black magic-inspired dabblings on ’Satanic Majesties’ weren’t intended to be serious, does that mean nothing of a dark or untoward nature would’ve manifested from his actions as a result? Well… no – or that’s how it would appear to ‘Conspiro Media’ having deduced what Manly P. Hall has written in his ‘Magic…’ pamphlet. Following on from his claim that “every living person” has the ability to unconsciously or subconsciously pervert power, he then goes on to warn us that “the powers of darkness work alike through the thoughtless and the silly” as well as “the arrogant and self-righteous.” Furthermore, “every debased thought and emotion of man helps to build these tearing, rending creatures, the innate qualities of which become, in the hands of those who know, agencies for the destruction of the powers of light.” Later on in this article you’ll discover (if you didn’t know already) that Marianne was apparently well aware of the principles and the warnings being put forward by Hall, irrespective of whether she was (is) familiar with the man himself and his works.

Almost thirty years prior to Jagger’s ‘Rolling Stone’ interview in which he all too briefly referred to the ‘black magic imagery’ on ‘Satanic Majesties,’ the very same magazine reviewed the album’s cover-art in a short article and claimed the singer “had wanted to include a picture of himself naked on a cross. The record company, however, felt the photo would be in bad taste.”

CLICK TO ENLARGE

Reviewing the art on the inner-sleeve of the ‘Satanic Majesties’ record-cover, ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine concluded that “the inside of the fold-out reveals a spectacular… collage: the New York skyline floating under Saturn, a mountain observatory surrounded by flowers… a surfer riding a wave, and almost completely filling one page, a maze with an octagonal centre with the words, ‘IT’S HERE’ printed in the middle.”

Back in 1967, Mick Jagger reportedly said of the front-cover, “it’s not really meant to be a very nice picture at all. Look at the expressions on our faces. It’s a Grimms’ fairy-tale – one of those stories that used to frighten as a young child.” What? Such as the one titled ’Fitcher’s Bird’ perhaps which tells of a wizard (aptly enough) who used to take the form of a pauper and then go about begging and catching pretty girls?… Once upon a time, he appeared before the door of a man who had three attractive daughters, the eldest of whom offered him a piece of bread. Just as she was reaching out to hand it to him, he touched her, at which point she felt compelled to jump inside the basket that was on his back. He carried her into the dark of the forest where his house was situated and took her inside. It was full of magnificent things. Gold and silver shone throughout. He said to her, “my darling, thou wilt certainly be happy with me, for thou hast everything thy heart can wish for.” A few days later, he informed her that he had to leave for a short time. Before doing so, he handed her an egg for safe-keeping, for if it was lost, a great misfortune would arise. He also left her with a set of keys telling her she was free to go about any room in the building except for one, warning her, “I forbid thee to go on pain of death.” She promised to obey his wishes, but when he was gone, her curiosity overcame her. She unlocked the door that she’d been forbidden from entering, and walked in. There she saw a basin with hacked human body parts inside it, and nearby, a gleaming axe and a block of wood. She was so alarmed that she let go of the egg which then fell into the carcasses. In a panic, she retrieved it and tried to scrub the blood off it, but to no avail. The wizard returned from his journey and saw almost at once by the red spots on it that she‘d disobeyed him. He threw her down, dragged her by the hair, chopped off her head, cut her into pieces, and tossed her into the basin with the rest. Once again taking the form of a pauper, he revisited the man’s house where he’d grabbed her from and snatched himself the second daughter using exactly the same method as before. She too allowed curiosity to overwhelm her, and she too was butchered. He then went and caught the third and took her into the dark of the forest – but she was clever and crafty. When the wizard gave her the egg for safe-keeping and then left for another of his trips, she carefully tucked it away from harm first and then proceeded to enter into the forbidden room. There she saw the remains of her sisters in the basin. She gathered up their body-parts and put them in order; head, body, arms and legs. Eventually, the limbs began to join together and move, and the girls were once more alive. After some rejoicing, the younger sibling hid them away from view within the house. The wizard eventually returned from his trip and, noticing no traces of blood on the egg, said to her, “thou hast stood the test, thou shalt be my bride.” He now no longer had any power over her and was forced to do whatever she desired. This was her opportunity to escape his clutches. She told him to take a basketful of gold to her mother and father. However, she didn’t tell him that she’d hidden her sisters within the contents along with an express request to fetch help. The wizard set off on his journey whilst she stayed behind and made arrangements for their wedding. She prepared a marriage-feast, sent invitations to the groom’s friends, and then took a skull with grinning teeth, put ornaments on it and a wreath of flowers, carried it upstairs and placed it by a window looking out. Following this, she got into a barrel of honey, and then cut open a bed and rolled herself into the feathers that came out of it until she looked like a bird, and no one could recognise her. She left the house and went on her way. As the wizard slowly made his return, he looked up at his residence and saw the decked-out skull by the window. Thinking it was his wife-to-be, he smiled, greeted her and made his way in with the wedding guests. Once all of them were gathered inside, the bride’s brothers and relatives arrived after heeding her call for help. They locked all of the doors so that no one might escape and set fire to the building. The sorcerer and his friends were burned to death.

The music-author, Christopher Sandford makes no note of the Grimm brothers’ stories influencing ’Satanic Majesties’ in his biography, ’Mick Jagger. Primitive Cool,’ although he does cite literary works that apparently did, and which were bought at the ’Indica,’ the bookshop at the forefront of the ‘underground scene’ in London during the 1960s. He states, “in early 1967 Jagger appeared at the Indica shop and bought, among others, ’The Secret of the Golden Flower,’ an anthology of cryptic allusions and Middle Earth esoteria (green suns, flying discs and argosies of celestial travellers).” Jagger also “read ’The Golden Bough’ approvingly.” Written by British anthropologist and folklorist, Sir James Frazer, The Golden Bough’ is a study of magic, myths and legends from many different cultures throughout history. First published in two volumes in 1890 with a further three in 1900 followed by another twelve between 1906-15, as well as a supplement in the 1930s, this massive work provides information on various esoteric rituals, sacrifices, and celebrations from around the world dating back to the ancients, and draws attention to similarities in their key themes which have recurred throughout the centuries and across geographical and cultural divides. These commonalities, for example, can be found in Christianity when analysing the parallels between Christmas and Mithra, the old Persian deity. To emphasise his point, Frazer directs his attention to a period during the days of the Roman empire when the Mithraic religion was competing for prominence in the western world. He claims it “proved a formidable rival to Christianity… An instructive relic of the long struggle is preserved in our festival of Christmas, which the Church seems to have borrowed directly from its… rival.” The author then goes on to highlight the connections between Christianity and the sun (son), echoing a theme explored earlier in this article through the work of Santos Bonacci and Jordan Maxwell. Indeed, Mithra is associated with solar worship and, according to many researchers, was born of a virgin on December 25th. Frazer writes, “in the Julian calendar the 25th December was reckoned the winter solstice, and it was regarded as the Nativity of the Sun, because the day begins to lengthen and the power of the sun to increase from that turning-point of the year. The ritual of the nativity, as it appears to have been celebrated in Syria and Egypt, was remarkable. The celebrants retired into certain inner shrines, from which at midnight they issued with a loud cry, ‘the Virgin has brought forth! The light is waxing!’ The Egyptians even represented the new-born sun by the image of an infant which on his birthday, the winter solstice, they brought forth and exhibited to his worshippers. No doubt the Virgin who thus conceived and bore a son on the 25th December was the great… goddess whom the Semites called the Heavenly Virgin or simply the Heavenly Goddess… Now Mithra was regularly identified by his worshippers with the Sun, the Unconquered Sun, as they called him; hence his nativity also fell on the 25th December.” In another chapter, Frazer writes at length about the Saturnalia. “This famous festival fell in December, the last month of the Roman year,” he states, “and was popularly supposed to commemorate the merry reign of Saturn, the god of sowing and of husbandry, who lived on earth long ago as a righteous and beneficent king of Italy, drew the rude and scattered dwellers on the mountains together, taught them to till the ground, gave them laws, and ruled in peace. At last the good god, the kindly king, vanished suddenly; but his memory was cherished to distant ages, shrines were reared in his honour, and many hills and high places in Italy bore his name. Yet the bright tradition of his reign was crossed by a dark shadow: his altars are said to have been stained with the blood of human victims, for whom a more merciful age afterwards substituted effigies.”

Sir James Frazer.

According to Frazer “no feature” of the Saturnalia festival “is more remarkable… than the licence granted to slaves at this time. The distinction between the free and the servile classes was temporarily abolished. The slave might rail at his master, intoxicate himself like his betters, sit down at table with them, and not even a word of reproof would be administered to him for conduct which at any other season might have been punished with stripes, imprisonment, or death. Nay, more, masters actually changed places with their slaves and waited on them at table; and not till the serf had done eating and drinking was the board cleared and dinner set for his master. So far was this inversion of ranks carried, that each household became for a time a mimic republic in which the high offices of state were discharged by the slaves, who gave their orders and laid down the law as if they were indeed invested with all the dignity of the consulship, the praetorship, and the bench. The person on whom the lot fell enjoyed the title of king, and issued commands of a playful and ludicrous nature to his temporary subjects. Now, when we remember that the liberty allowed to slaves at this festive season was supposed to be an imitation of the state of society in Saturn’s time, and that in general the Saturnalia passed for nothing more or less than a temporary revival or restoration of the reign of that merry monarch, we are tempted to surmise that the mock king who presided over the revels may have originally represented Saturn himself. The conjecture is strongly confirmed, if not established, by a very curious and interesting account of the way in which the Saturnalia was celebrated by the Roman soldiers stationed on the Danube in the reign of Maximian and Diocletian.“ According to the account, “the Roman soldiers at Durostorum in Lower Moesia celebrated the Saturnalia year by year in the following manner. Thirty days before the festival they chose by lot from amongst themselves a young and handsome man, who was then clothed in royal attire to resemble Saturn. Thus arrayed and attended by a multitude of soldiers he went about in public with full license to indulge his passions and to taste of every pleasure, however base and shameful. But if his reign was merry, it was short and ended tragically; for when the thirty days were up and the festival of Saturn had come, he cut his own throat on the altar of the god whom he personated. In the year A.D. 303 the lot fell upon the Christian soldier Dasius, but he refused to play the part of the heathen god and soil his last days by debauchery. The threats and arguments of his commanding officer Bassus failed to shake his constancy, and accordingly he was beheaded.” Again drawing parallels with the story of Jesus and solar/planetary worship, Frazer believes there is a “remarkable resemblance… between the treatment of the mock king of the Saturnalia by the Roman soldiers at Durostorum… and the treatment of Christ by the Roman soldiers at Jersualem” prior to his crucifixion when he was stripped and re-dressed with a scarlet robe and a crown of thorns.
One might wonder whether the “remarkable resemblance” that Frazer identifies between the mock king of Saturnalia and the crucifixion story is actually the inspiration behind Mick Jagger’s desire, reportedly, to appear naked on a cross in amongst the Saturn imagery on ‘Satanic Majesties’ – assuming of course that he did indeed purchase ‘The Golden Bough’ in early 1967 and read it as claimed in, ‘Mick Jagger. Primitive Cool’ by Christopher Sandford? As it happens, he’s not the only biographer to make note of the Rolling Stone’s interest in Frazer’s work. Philip Norman states that the singer “would send regular orders to his friend (Barry) Miles at the Indica Bookshop for such required underground classics as ‘The Secret of the Golden Bough.’” Furthermore, Mick “was particularly interested, Miles remembers, in books about fairies, goblins and elves.” Tom Keylock, the Rolling Stones’ former driver and tour-manager, told Christopher Sandford, “Mick would appear with four paperbacks under his arm and start babbling about ‘fiery oceans’” This very phrase appears in the lyrics of the ‘Satanic Majesties’ track, ‘2000 Light Years from Home’:

Sun turnin’ ’round with graceful motionWe’re setting off with soft explosionBound for a star with fiery oceansIt’s so very lonelyYou’re a 100 light years from home

Freezing red deserts turn to darkEnergy here in every partIt’s so very lonelyYou’re 600 light years from home

It’s so very lonelyYou’re a 1000 light years from homeIt’s so very lonelyYou’re a 1000 light years from home

Bell flight 14 you now can landSee you on AldebaranSafe on the green desert sandIt’s so very lonelyYou’re 2000 light years from homeIt’s so very lonelyYou’re 2000 light years from home

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‘2000 Light Years from Home’ was released in its own right during 1967/’68 and came with an accompanying promo-film featuring Mick dressed in what ‘Conspiro Media’ can only describe as some form of pagan-esque wizard-like costume…

Perhaps it’s no surprise that ‘2000 Light Years from Home’ is often thought to have been influenced by themes pertaining to space-travel, given the lyrical content. As it happens, one of Mick Jagger’s purchases at the Indica – according to Philip Norman – was ‘The Book of the Damned’ by Charles Henry Fort. Published in 1919, it examines “the data of the damned” – in other words, “data that science has excluded” such as reports of UFO sightings. Michael C. Luckman, the author of 2005‘s, ’Alien Rock: The Rock ’n’ Roll Extraterrestrial Connection,’ has reportedly said, “Mick Jagger has been very involved with the subject of UFOs for many years. In 1968 he went camping in Glastonbury with his then-girlfriend, Marianne Faithful, and encountered a rare, luminous cigar-shaped mothership. Around the same time Mick had a UFO detector installed at his British estate. The alarm kept on going off whenever he left home, indicating the presence of strong electromagnetic activity in the immediate area.” Fellow Rolling Stone, Keith Richards has spoken publicly on the subject of UFOs on more than one occasion it would seem. Luckman states in his book:

Keith Richards reported seeing several daylight discs near his estate in Sussex, England, at 6 am one day in 1968. “I’ve seen a few (UFOs),” Keith commented, “but nothing that any of the ministries would believe. I believe they exist – plenty of people have seen them. They are tied up with a lot of things, like the dawn of Man, for example. It’s not just a matter of people spotting a flying saucer. I’m not an expert,” Keith admitted. “I’m still trying to understand what’s going on.” Toward that goal, Keith read books like ‘Chariots of the Gods’ by Erich von Daniken. The Swiss author and researcher, who was also a favourite of Elvis Presley’s, presents stunning evidence that Earth was visited thousands of years ago by ancient astronauts who directly charted the development of the human race. On March 7th 1968, Keith and Anita Pallenberg discussed an idea for an offbeat film about sky people and flying saucers… The film was to star Mick, Marianne, Keith and Anita, and… Brian Jones. However, the project never made it to the big screen.

Luckman then goes on to detail an overnight UFO-hunting excursion that both Richards and Pallenberg, along with musician and singer/songwriter, Gram Parsons embarked on in the California desert outside Joshua Tree in 1969. He claims,

Gram packed a picnic basket and high-powered binoculars. “We went there to watch UFOs,” said Keith rather matter-of-factly… they gazed up at the sky, watching the sunset and sunrise. But alas no space visitors joined the all-night cosmic vigil on the mountaintop.

Keith Richards and Gram Parsons at Joshua Tree.

In the video below – which has been uploaded from a ‘YouTube’ clip titled, ‘Keith Richards & Alien Life-Forms’ – the Rolling Stone says, “very few people saw them before we let off an atom bomb and suddenly, everybody started to see them… figure it out. You know, personally, I’ve never met one, you know, but there’s too many sane people out there that say they have, you know?”

In his book, Michael Luckman writes,

Marianne Faithfull said that at the height of the 1960s, Brian Jones and other friends in the Rolling Stones circle were “convinced that there was a mystic link between druidic monuments (such as Stonehenge) and flying saucers. Extraterrestrials were going to read these signs from their spaceships and get the message.” Asked by friends if he would climb aboard a flying saucer if one descended in front of him, Brian said that he was primed and ready to go. “Our friends are questioning the wisdom of an almost blind acceptance of religion compared with the total disregard for reports relating to things like unidentified flying objects,” said Brian.

Luckman states that Jones…was known to drive many miles from his home around midnight to search for UFOs. Brian was so focused on the space theme that he purchased two planetary paintings to decorate the walls of his home… Brian commissioned David Hardy, the award-winning British science-fiction illustrator, to create two large acrylic paintings, 36” by 20”. One was titled, ‘Uranus from Titania,’ and the other, ‘Jupiter from Io.’

Fellow Rolling Stone, Bill Wyman reportedly said in a June 2001 British newspaper interview, “I’ve had a telescope since the 1970s and I love watching out for UFOs. I think I saw one eighteen months ago in the South of France. We spotted this orange disc hovering in the sky for half an hour and I filmed it with a movie-camera. The British UFO Council investigated it and drew a blank. The US Government has always denied any incidents with UFOs at Roswell, except it turns out that they’ve got millions of documents relating to them.” According to Michael Luckman’s book,

Bill Wyman theorised that “maybe ten percent” of all unidentified flying objects are genuine, which judging by the number of UFO reports in every country on Earth, would add up to quite a huge number, perhaps thousands or even tens of thousands over the years. “The media tend to really kill it (the UFO subject) because it’s the only way of stopping everyone getting s**t scared,” declared Bill. “There actually are beings who might be cleverer than us and might use us as cattle fodder, so they ridicule it and fob it off.” He urged people to “look at the factual evidence. I’m very logical, very black-and-white, and when I’m presented with proven facts I have to think about it.”

The Rolling Stones’ fascination with UFOs during the 1960s was indicative of the times. Former Indica bookshop proprietor, Barry Miles, a luminary of that decade’s British ’underground’ scene and close friend/associate/confidante with many of the Rock bands, Beat poets, writers, and avante-garde artists who blossomed during that period, has reportedly said, “from the mid-sixties onwards, you have what would have to be called a sort of LSD consciousness permeating the whole of the counter-culture side of British society. And… all these bands incorporate LSD-inspired imagery, and that of course was not the normal imagery of love songs and picking up girls, it was much more to do with a specifically British form of psychedelia which involved dancing gnomes and flying saucers. The people we knew led double lives, experimenting with Acid, spending entire evenings discussing flying saucers, ley lines and the court of King Arthur. Other people waited patiently at Arthur’s Tor for flying saucers to land.” Indeed, Keith Richards has been quoted as saying, “we got into a lot of those English eccentrics. People finding out all about those magnetic lines. We hung around a lot with John Michell, wandered around England a few weekends.” John Michell was the author of ‘The Flying Saucer Vision,’ first published in 1967. “A theme in my book was the connection between unidentified flying objects and ancient sites, as evidenced both in folklore and in contemporary experience,” he purportedly said. His other books include, ‘The View Over Atlantis’ (1969), ‘New Light on the Ancient Mystery of Glastonbury’ (1990), and ‘Who Wrote Shakespeare?’ (1996) among many others.

In 1968, the Rolling Stones wiped themselves free of the psychedelic, Acid-soaked excesses of ‘Satanic Majesties’ with the release of their follow-up single. Well… maybe not entirely perhaps? Titled ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash,’ it was, essentially, a return to their musical roots but harder, tighter, and funkier than before. The B-side however, ‘Child of the Moon,‘ was reminiscent of the material on their LSD-soaked 1967 album, what with its mystical-sounding title, jangling guitars and drawling vocals. This song came with a promo-film that some might describe as ‘creepy’ and somewhat baffling – too baffling for ‘Conspiro Media‘ to decipher, any way. So, instead, here’s an interpretation of it courtesy of Andrew Male, the deputy-editor of the UK music-magazine, ‘Mojo‘…

‘Child of the Moon’ plays like a British sci-fi / horror-short, seemingly referencing Italian giallo, ‘Village of the Damned,’ and J. Lee Thompson’s 1966 pagan horror (and ‘Wicker Man’ forerunner) ‘Eye of the Devil.’ The film possesses the dusk-light glow of a peaking Acid-trip, magic-hour euphoria tinged with a chilly unease, yet also tunes into the darker subtext of the Stones occult dalliances.This is a music-promo in which a lone woman – her face dirty and smeared with tears – stumbles out of a dark wood only to encounter a gang of five frowning men blocking her path. The most grim and obvious interpretation is that this group are potential sex aggressors. Another reading, and one perhaps more in keeping with the song’s more mystical qualities, is that Jagger et al are auguries of excess. Even so, the woman is being warned to go no further. This is your future? Maybe. Or perhaps, simply, this is not for you, dear. Either way, turn back now.Whether wholly intentional or not, ‘Child of the Moon’ stands as one of the most disturbing and powerful representations of the Rolling Stones’ fiendish late ‘60s mythology…

Andrew Male also states that “on paper“ the song,is Jagger’s polytheistic love letter to Marianne Faithfull, a mash note laced with a little elemental riddle and mystery. However, on record, it actually feels closer to pagan curse than lyric poem…

CHILD OF THE MOONThe wind blows rain into my face The sun glows at the end of the highway Child of the moon, rub your rainy eyes Oh, child of the moon Give me a wide-awake crescent-shaped smile

She shivers, by the light she is hidden She flickers like a lamp lady vision Child of the moon, rub your rainy eyes Child of the moon Give me a wide-awake crescent-shaped smile

The first car on the foggy road riding The last star for my lady is pining Oh, child of the moon, bid the sun arise Oh, child of the moon Give me a misty day, pearly grey, silver, silky faced, Wide-awake crescent-shaped smile

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Watch the promo of ‘Child of the Moon’ for yourself, right here:

Whether intentional or not, ‘Child of the Moon’ was a parting nod to the psychedelia of the ‘Satanic Majesties’ era. The Stones would never sound like this again.

Mmmm… INTERESTING: The front and back-cover of the original record-sleeve of ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ and ‘Child of the Moon.’

The flip-side, ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ was a taste of things to come, the birth of a new era for the band – a reinvention of sorts, or, as Keith Richards describes it in his memoirs, “this whole new idea started to blossom, this new second wind.”

In December 1968, the Rolling Stones unleashed the album, ‘Beggars Banquet.’ It’s often hailed as the starting-point of the band’s four-year ‘golden age’ period when they recorded and released an uninterrupted run of Rock classics. “That was the most important time for the band,” Keith Richards reportedly said in 2002. “It was the first change The Stones had to make after the teeny-bopper phase… Mick and I developed the song-writing and records. ‘Beggars Banquet’ was like coming out of puberty.”

‘Beggars Banquet’ album.

According to author, Philip Norman in his book, ‘The Stones: The Definitive Biography,’ their art-dealer friend, Christopher Gibbs came up with the name ‘Beggars Banquet’ “in accordance with the prevailing atmosphere of wizards, hobgoblins, and devilish paradox.” It’s the album that includes what is probably their most controversial track ever, ‘Sympathy for the Devil.’ It was chiefly written by Jagger who, in the 2012 official Rolling Stones documentary, ‘Crossfire Hurricane,‘ says some of the inspiration for it came to him from the writings of 19th century French essayist, art-critic, and poet, Charles Baudelaire whose most famous work was a volume of poems; ‘Le Fleurs du mal’ (‘The Flowers of Evil’). Born in Paris in 1821, the son of a former priest-turned-civil servant, he received a large financial inheritance on his 21st birthday but quickly squandered it on an extravagant lifestyle and spent the remainder of his days in debt struggling to get by. An opium user, and prone to depression to the point of attempting suicide, it’s said he contracted syphilis during his twenties, perhaps from a prostitute. He died aged just 46 after spending time in a nursing home stricken with paralysis.
In order to gain a possible deeper understanding of Baudelaire’s work and what might’ve inspired Jagger, let’s take note of what Arnold Louis Weinstein, the Professor of Comparative Literature at the illustrious ‘Brown University’ in the US had to say about the poet during a lecture at Harvard in 1997. He said his poems showed “a terrible yearning to get clear of the constraints of his life” through “voyage, escape, transcendence, and he seeks it in countless different ways. Travel. Voyage. Trip – Tripping. Baudelaire is one of the great experts about drugs… he experimented with hashish and he wrote about its effects on him, and he writes poems about wine, and about drugs. One of his prose pieces is called, ‘Get Drunk,’ and it’s all about getting clear of the dreary constraints of your everyday situation. Baudelaire is the poet of boredom – that life is terrible – we have to find ways – artificial or poetic, or other – to somehow transcend this, to get beyond this. One of the most fascinating elements in Baudelaire’s treatment of voyage, is sex. He’s one of the great erotic poets in the French language.” But his sex-poems landed him in trouble. Shortly after ‘The Flowers of Evil’ was published in 1857, he ended up in court over some of its contents which were deemed an offence to morality. He was fined, and six of the poems were ordered to be removed from the book. “Some of his poems that were censored were poems about lesbianism,” said Weinstein. “He writes two or three: ‘The Damned Women’ – the Women Who Are Condemned – and also ‘Lesbos,’ and he talks about the search for some kind of infinite pleasure that lesbianism might make possible.”

Charles Baudelaire.

He also wrote “many poems about beauty as a way of getting clear of the monotony and the ugliness of modern life. He is also wonderful at finding new subjects for beauty, one of his most famous poems is called, ’The Carcass.’ And it’s about two lovers walking through the streets and they come to the carcass of a dead animal on the sidewalk. And the poet explains to his woman that there is obviously a kind of message here, ’we should quickly enjoy the possibilities of love because this is what is going to happen to both of us.’ But beyond what the poet says within the poem, is the clear obvious message that writing about a carcass can be a form of poetry. Rembrandt did this much earlier in one.. some of his paintings about hanging meat and things like that. These are shocking because they break the canons and conventions of what acceptable subject matter are. But it says something about Baudelaire’s obsession to make things beautiful. In one of his poems about beauty, he says, ‘whether you come from heaven or hell, it makes no difference.’” This brings us neatly onto another of his poems, taken from ‘The Flowers of Evil,’ titled, ‘Litanies of Satan’…

You who fill the hearts and eyes of whoresWith love of trifles and the cult of sores,

Satan have pity on my long despair!

The exile’s staff, inventor’s lamp, caresserOf hanged men, and of plotters the confessor,

Satan have pity on my long despair!

Step-father of all those who, robbed of pardon,God drove in anger out of Eden’s garden

Satan have pity on my long despair!

Prayer

Praise to you, Satan! In the heights you lit,And also in the deeps where now you sit,Vanquished, in Hell, and dream in hushed defianceO that my soul, beneath the Tree of ScienceMight rest near you, while shadowing your brows,It spreads a second Temple with its boughs.

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According to Robert R. Daniel Ph.D. in his book, ‘The Poetry of Villon and Baudelaire,’ the above poem finds its writer turning “in prayer to Satan, with whom he empathises. Satan has, like humankind, suffered what he considers divine injustice.” A form of sympathy for the Devil then? Interestingly, ’Litanies of Satan’ has been adopted by the notorious Church of Satan. However, Arnold Weinstein has argued that “Baudelaire is, despite himself, a deeply Catholic poet. Sin is everywhere on his agenda.” Indeed, it’s said Baudelaire received the last rites of the Catholic Church shortly before his death.

It’s in one of Baudelaire’s poems that we find the original source for the phrase, ‘the Devil’s finest trick is to persuade you that he doesn’t exist.’ It comes from ‘The Generous Gambler,’ in which he states, “my beloved brothers, never forget when you hear people boast of our progress in enlightenment, that one of the Devil’s best ruses is to persuade you that he does not exist!” This is a theme that shows up in another of Jagger’s inspirations for ‘Sympathy for the Devil,’ the Russian novel, ‘The Master and Margarita’ by Mikhail Bulgakov. It charts the exploits of Satan as he makes his way around 1930s Moscow under the guise of ‘Professor Woland,’ a mysterious gentleman magician of some sophistication. Together with his fiendish accomplices that includes a talking cat and an expert assassin, he leaves behind a trail of mayhem and tragedy across the city. In the opening chapter, we’re introduced to two men sitting on a bench by a pond. One of them is a poet, the other, his editor, who wants him to write an ‘anti-religious poem’ denying the existence of Jesus Christ, and who tells him, “there is not a single eastern religion where an immaculate virgin does not, as a matter of course, bring forth a god into the world. And the Christians, displaying no originality whatsoever, followed the same pattern when they created their Jesus, who, in fact, never existed at all… the fact is that a whole host of sons of God were born even before Jesus, like say, the Persian Mithras.” Sitting on a neighbouring bench is Professor Woland who proceeds to get up and make his way towards the two men. It’s here we find a glaring parallel with the opening line of ’Sympathy for the Devil’ when Jagger sings, “Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a man of wealth and taste.” In the novel, Satan says to the poet and his editor, “please, excuse me for presuming to speak to you without an introduction…” Having listened-in on their conversation regarding the non-existence of Christ, he informs them that, based on his own personal experience, he did in fact exist. He then recounts what he claims is his own eye-witness account of Jesus being brought before Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem. Again, here we can find parallels with the lyrics to ’Sympathy for the Devil’ in the line, “I was around when Jesus Christ had his moment of doubt and pain. Made damn sure that Pilate washed his hands and sealed his fate.” Clearly, Jagger is taking on the role of Satan in the song and giving us an account of his journey through major events of history including the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Second World War, and the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, and his brother, Robert.

SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVILPlease allow me to introduce myselfI’m a man of wealth and taste I’ve been around for a long, long yearStolen many a man’s soul and faith

And I was around when Jesus ChristHad His moment of doubt and pain Made damn sure that PilateWashed his hands and sealed His fate

Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name But what’s puzzling you is the nature of my game

I stuck around St. PetersburgWhen I saw it was a time for a change Killed the Tzar and his ministersAnastasia screamed in vain

I rode a tank, held a general’s rankWhen the blitzkrieg raged and the bodies stank

It’s said that the line in the song, “I shouted out, ’who killed the Kennedys‘” was originally written as, “I shouted out, ‘who killed Kennedy’” but was changed following the shooting of Robert in June ‘68 when the track had yet to be completed. “You can’t pin their deaths on anyone,” Jagger reportedly said in 1969. “There were so many people who would have liked to see them dead.” Ultimately though, the lyrics tell us that ‘it was you and me’ who are responsible. “It is our responsibility because crime in our society is our responsibility,” he purportedly stated. As for the constant accusations that the song is alluding to black magic, he’s replied, “my whole thing of this song was not black magic… It was different than that. I knew lots of people that were into Aleister Crowley. What I’m saying is, it wasn’t what I meant by the song ‘Sympathy for the Devil.’ If you read it, it’s not about black magic, per se.” In a 1987 ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine interview, journalist, Mikal Gilmore asked Jagger if ’Sympathy for the Devil’ was actually intended more as a comment on the nature of personal evil, the idea that the Devil lives inside each of us, and less about boasting an alliance with Satan, as has been the perception of many music-fans. He replied, “well, I don’t want to start explaining my old songs, because I think it’s more pleasurable for people to have their own interpretation of a song or a novel or a film… but your point of view seems a pretty valid one to me. You got it right, more or less.” He continued, “I thought it was a really odd thing, because it was only one song, after all. It wasn’t like it was a whole album with lots of occult signs on the back.” Maybe so, but the on-going speculation and suspicion surrounding The Stones’ associations with Satan in whatever shape or form aren’t based on “only one song,” are they? If they were, then perhaps it would indeed be “really odd” to continually pour doubt over ‘Sympathy for the Devil’?
In the excerpt below, you can see Jagger seemingly revelling in his role as Satan whilst performing the song on the 1968 concert-film, ‘The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus.’ Three quarters of the way into the number, he gets on his knees wailing and shrieking as he does then lowers his body down to the floor holding his arms out in front of him as though in reverence to some invisible, dark entity…

Is this an example of his “acting,” or is there something else going on here? Judge for yourself…

If you watch the video above, you’ll see Mick peeling off his shirt and showing off his fake chest-tattoo of the Devil. Was this in any way inspired by the Stones’ relationship with occult film-director and Aleister Crowley devotee, Kenneth Anger who was on close and friendly terms with members of the band at the time?…

Mick Jagger (left), flaunting his Devil-tattoo on the ‘Rock and Roll Circus.’ On the right, a recent photo of Kenneth Anger with his infamous ‘Lucifer’ tattoo.

It was Anger, so it’s said, who was responsible – albeit indirectly – for introducing Mick Jagger to ’The Master and Margarita,’ the novel that would inspire ‘Sympathy for the Devil.’ He’d purportedly recommended the book to Marianne Faithfull who then in turn gave it to her Rock-star boyfriend. Indeed, in her memoirs, she does recall “I had given him Mikhail Bulgakov’s ‘The Master and Margarita’ to read – he devoured it in one night and spit out ‘Sympathy for the Devil.’” Additionally, it’s said the song also came about as a result of conversations the Stones front-man had with Anger. According to Tony Sanchez, a one-time nightclub-doorman and casino croupier with connections to London’s seedy gangster underworld who then went on to work for Keith Richards for a number of years buying his drugs, running his errands and keeping him company, “Mick, Marianne, Keith… Anita, and many others of the new, rich jaded Rock aristocracy listened spellbound as Anger turned them on to Crowley’s powers and ideas.”

Mick, Anita Pallenberg, and Keith at London’s Heathrow Airport, 1968.

He makes the claim in his book, ‘Up and Down with the Rolling Stones. My Rollercoaster Ride with Keith Richards.’ Anger, now well into his eighties, has insisted, “I am not a Satanist. I am a pagan.” However, he was a friend of Anton LaVey the now deceased founder of the Church of Satan. Furthermore, former member, Michael Aquino has reportedly said the notorious film-director was part of “the core” back in the mid-1960s that “gradually stabilised into what Anton called his ‘Magic Circle‘… and it was the nucleus of what would… become the Church of Satan” in 1966. “He was definitely more of a Satanist. He spent a hell of a lot of time with the Church of Satan – he was always hanging around,” LaVey was quoted as saying.
Anger was also, in his own words, “a close friend” of Donald Cammell, the British movie-maker who cast Mick Jagger as a lead in the cult-classic, ‘Performance.’ Charles Richard Cammell, his father, was a poet and author who wrote the 1951 book, ‘Aleister Crowley. The Man, The Mage, The Poet.’ Kenneth has said, “Aleister Crowley was a friend of Charles R. Cammell. Donald told me that he sat on Aleister Crowley’s knee.” Indeed, the so-called ‘Great Beast’ lived nearby and used to draw-up 400-page horoscopes for the writer’s children. It’s rumoured that he also became godfather to Donald, who‘s reportedly stated, “my father filled the house with magicians, spiritualists, and demons.”
Filmed in 1968, ‘Performance’ was Cammell’s directorial debut. It’s the story of a London gangster (played by English actor, James Fox) who, after shooting dead a rival who’s subjected him to a brutal beating, goes on the run and then finds refuge inside a house where Turner (Jagger), a retired and reclusive Rock-star lives. According to the Stones front-man’s official website, it’s “an uncompromising essay in sex, drugs, Rock and Roll, and violence.” Anita Pallenberg also appears in the movie. She says Donald was “really fascinated by the whole Pop scene.“ She first met him in Paris in the early 1960s when she was working as a model. She later introduced him to Brian Jones. Cammell has said he and the musician both “became friends instantly.” Jagger recalls the director being “very interested in the mysteries of life.”

Donald Cammell

The English actress, Barbara Steele, a star of a number of sixties horror films including the hailed ‘classic,’ ‘Black Sunday,’ also knew him. “He had these little demonic teeth,” she’s said… “these little fangs… and you half expected him to have a little tail… he was like a Pan creature.” Pallenberg, remembering one particular moment with Cammell during the filming of a scene in ’Performance’ which is set in Turner’s kitchen, says, “I know that there was a lot of kind of little ritual things that always had to be there.” For example, “when we were in the kitchen there’s this thing about the way we lay the forks and the knives and that was all part of Donald’s kind of little magic things that he knew about and he just made us do them.”

The music-critic and author, Barney Hoskyns states in his book, ‘Hotel California,’ that the soundtrack to the movie, which was masterminded by respected composer, producer, and arranger, Jack Nitzche, was “composed in a witch’s cottage, with Donald Cammell plying Nitzche with cocaine.” Incidentally, there’s one particular musical moment from the film worth noting. It’s from the scene where Fox’s character is lying on a bed having his badly beaten body tended to by Pherber, one of the female inhabitants of the house (played by Pallenberg). Nearby, Jagger (Turner) picks away at a guitar, merging together two numbers, ‘Come On in My Kitchen’ and ‘Me and the Devil Blues,‘ both written by the legend that is Robert Johnson who’s said to have been given his talents by Satan after trading in his soul at a meeting on a crossroads in Mississippi back in the early half of the last century. In her book ‘Robert Johnson, Mythmaking, and Contemporary American Culture,’ author, Professor Patricia R. Schroeder writes, “’Me and the Devil Blues’ describes the singer’s awakening one morning to a knock on the door, only to find Satan standing there, warning him that ‘it’s time to go’ and then walking by his side and encouraging his evil thoughts.”

ME AND THE DEVIL BLUESEarly this morningWhen you knocked upon my doorEarly this morningWhen you knocked upon my doorAnd I said, “Hello SatanI believe it’s time to go.”

Me and the DevilWas walkin’ side by sideMe and the DevilWas walking side by sideI’m going to beat my womanUntil I get satisfied.

She said you don’t see whyThat I will dog her ‘roundNow baby you know you ain’t doin’ me right She say you don’t see whyThat I will dog her ‘roundIt must be that old evil spiritSo deep down in the ground

You may bury my bodyDown by the highway sideBaby, I don’t care where you bury my body when I’m dead and goneYou may bury my bodyDown by the highway sideSo my old evil spiritCan get a Greyhound bus and ride

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Released in 1970, Cammell has said ‘Performance’ “brings the Neanderthal gangster and the effete yellow-book world of the Rock-star into one demonic fusion.”
‘Conspiro Media’ will be examining this movie and the making of it in greater detail in the third instalment of this article.

Some two months on from the release of ‘Beggars Banquet’ in December ‘68, the Rolling Stones were in the studio working on their follow-up album by which time Brian Jones’s contribution to the band had become almost non-existent. In 1995, Jagger said, “he had a huge contribution in the early days. He was very obsessed with it, which you always need… getting it going and its personality and how it should be. He was obsessed.“ But, he claims, “he went from (being) an obsessive about the band to being rather an outsider. He let his health deteriorate because he drank too much and took drugs when they were new, hung out too much, stayed up too late, partied too much and didn’t concentrate on what he was doing. Let his talent slide. He wouldn’t come to the studio. He wouldn’t do anything. We felt we couldn’t go on. In fact, we came to a point where we couldn’t play live. We couldn’t hold our heads up and play because Brian was a total liability. He wasn’t playing well, wasn’t playing at all, couldn’t hold the guitar. It was pathetic.” It’s said Jones’s previous drug convictions were preventing him from receiving a US work-permit at a time when The Stones were making plans for a North American concert-tour scheduled for late 1969. He’d been busted for possession of marijuana twice; first in May ‘67 and then again in May ‘68. As a result, it was suggested that the band add a new guitarist.

OMINOUS NUMBER-PLATES: Some screen-shots of Brian Jones’s car-registration plates; ‘DD 666.’ The first two pics are reportedly taken from June 1967 as he leaves West London Magistrates Court in relation to drugs charges. (CLICK TO ENLARGE)

On the subject of Brian’s car (above) and the intriguing registration-plate, Bill Wyman has been quoted as saying: “I don’t know whether he bought it for its eerie registration-plate, which was DD 666. ‘DD’ could stand for Devil’s Disciple, and the three sixes are the mark of the beast in ‘Revelations.’ Brian must have been aware of it, because he was intrigued by demonology and magic; even if he acquired the number-plate by pure chance, it seemed to mark a turning point, for the rest of his life was mostly tragic.”

The Stones’ new guitarist was a 20-year-old former member of the pioneering British group, John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers. His name, Mick Taylor. “It was John Mayall that told me that they were looking for a guitar player and to expect a call from Mick,” he recalled in 2001.

Mick Taylor, 1969.

He was invited down to the recording-studio where the band were working on their follow-up to ‘Beggars Banquet’ and was asked “to put the finishing touches to a couple of tracks.” In an interview available on ‘ClassicBands.com‘ he said, “they seemed to like me, so it was kind of like, more or less settled there and then.” Brian’s days in The Stones were coming to their end. Some time in early June ‘69, members of the band visited him at his country home. Keith has claimed, “it was very important to us the fact that we were gonna go back out on the road that we resolve this thing with Brian, so Mick and I had to go down and tell Brian virtually like, ‘hey cock, you’re fired.’ The fact that he was expecting it made it kind of easier, I guess, you know, he wasn‘t surprised.” The media were notified that Jones was no longer in the band shortly after this meeting, and the arrival of Mick Taylor into the line-up was formally declared too. The band also announced it was to hold a free concert in London’s Hyde Park on July 5th. Then, just two days before the gig was due to take place, Brian died. The coroner’s report concluded that he’d drowned in the swimming pool of his country-house whilst under the influence of drink and drugs. The verdict was “misadventure.“

Brian was the first in a line of 1960s music-giants to die at the age of 27. Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin were to follow between 1969 and 1971, as was Jim Morrison whose death was reported exactly two years after Jones’s on July 3rd ‘71. Since then, other high-profile musicians and singers including Amy Winehouse have also succumbed. Furthermore, all the above lost their lives due to circumstances attributed in one way or another to either drugs or alcohol or both. In the case of Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain, who died in 1994, suicide was the cause – albeit ‘officially’ (but that’s another subject for another time!). So, taking all this into account; not only did these talented artists bow out at the same age, but as a result of some form of abuse, violence or direct outside influence. Even Jim Morrison, who is listed in the coroner’s report as having died a “natural death” due to “heart failure,“ is said to have actually met his end from a fatal heroin overdose which was then covered-up by the people who’d sold him the drugs in the first place. According to the latest ‘Wikipedia’ figures, a total of 44 well-known musicians/singers have lost their lives at 27 (including Robert Johnson, incidentally). Fifteen of those are reportedly dead as a result of either drugs, alcohol, murder or suicide. All this has fuelled speculation that there is something unusually common about the seemingly high number of music-artists who’ve died at this age and the circumstances surrounding their premature deaths although that’s not the view that’s been expressed by statistician, Adrian Barnett Ph.D. after conducting a study into this. He examined the lifespan of every solo-artist and band-member who had a Number One hit on the UK Album Charts between 1956 and 2007. His results were then published in the ‘British Medical Journal’ in 2011. It states, “famous musicians do not have an increased risk of death at 27, but they do have a generally increased risk of death during their 20s and 30s compared with the UK population.” However, in an interview available on ‘ScienceNetLinks.com,’ he does acknowledge that he and his team “did find a very small blip in risk at age 27” although “there were also very similar blips at age 25 and 32.” Be that as it may, at least one of the estimated forty or so artists who gained entry into what has come to be known as the ‘27 Club’ – namely, Amy Winehouse – is said to have harboured genuine fears about it. That’s according to Alex Haines her former personal assistant. He talked about this with the now-defunct British tabloid, the ‘News of the World’ back in December 2008 – 31 months before she died of “misadventure” due to alcohol abuse. He was reported as saying that “it was my job to look after her. But it was impossible. She had to have a heroin and Crack pipe near her or she freaked out. She’d keep taking drugs until she passed out. Cutting herself was her favourite pastime. She reckoned she would join the ‘27 Club’ of Rock stars who died at that age. She told me, ‘I have a feeling I’m gonna die young.’” It’s perhaps worth noting that Brian Jones didn’t seem to hold out much hope of living to a ripe old age either – or anything close to it for that matter. Keith Richards has reportedly said, “there are some people who you know aren’t going to get old. Brian and I agreed that he, Brian, wouldn’t live very long… I remember saying, ‘you’ll never make 30, man,’ and he said, ‘I know.’” In her memoirs, Marianne Faithfull recalls, “as 1969 plunged on, I was becoming increasingly worried about Brian. I could feel something very nasty coming. So I suggested to Mick that we throw the I Ching about Brian and see what we should do. It was just dusk when I threw the coins. The reading I got was: Death by water. I turned to Mick and said, ‘it’s very odd, isn’t it?’ And he said, ‘my God. Do it again.’ I did it again, and I got the same thing. We just looked at each other. Finally I said, ‘look, this isn’t good at all. We’ve got to do something.’ And he said, ‘we ought to phone, see if he’s all right.’ And he actually did.” During a live-talk in 2013, former Rolling Stones manager, Andrew Loog Oldham referred to the ‘27 Club’ when he was asked to comment on his thoughts about Brian. He said Jones was a victim of “the ‘Saturn Death Club,’ which basically explains to you the ‘27 Club’; how many of those people died. When you haven’t got enough – not enough to get up tomorrow, but enough for the next actual chapter… he was also basically like a cat who’d had nine lives and then made a mistake and then went into recall… he wore himself out.” So, once again the ringed planet makes an appearance in this article. Presumably, the ‘Death Club’ that Loog Oldham associates it with, relates directly to what’s commonly known amongst those who study the influence of celestial bodies on people and events as, the ‘Saturn Return’ phenomenon? It’s believed this affects a person’s life during their late-twenties. Veteran astrologer, Rob Tillett states, “giant Saturn, the outermost planet in our solar system visible to the naked eye, spends some two and a half years in each sign, taking about twenty-nine years to complete his journey around the zodiac. Long experience shows that there are two (or sometimes three) especially significant periods of transition in a human lifespan; these are when Saturn returns by transit to the place in the zodiac he occupied when you were born. Astrologers call this dimensional shift the ‘Saturn Return.’ Each twenty-nine years naturally presents us with the challenge to rise to new levels of awareness, or face the consequences of having failed to gain the wisdom required to do so. This critical phase only happens once every 29 years, so at around age 28 – 30, 57 – 59, and (if you live long enough) 86 – 88, you have a Saturn Return. It signifies a definite time of transformation, an emotional transition from one life-phase to the next.” Tillett’s knowledge of the Saturn Return is featured in the 2008 book, ‘The 27s: The Greatest Myth of Rock & Roll.’ It’s written by Eric Segalstad:

Turning thirty is a big deal. Many experience the last years of their twenties as a transitional phase between youth and maturity. Thirty marks the real entry to adulthood – and age where most people have completed their university degrees, found their vocation, and are comfortably settled in a relationship – or not.Renowned astrologer Rob Tillett, who spent the ‘70s as a touring Rock & Roller in his native Australia and now publishes the popular site, ‘Astrology on the Web,’ says that we spend the end of our twenties “clearing the decks of karmic debris for a clean course for the next cycle.”Astrologers argue that Saturn Return is one of life’s most important thresholds as it intensifies one’s feelings of sadness, isolation and purpose. In the words of Rob Hand, author of ‘Planets in Transit,’ it’s “a time of endings and new beginnings.”

Saturn is known as the “greater malefic,” or “the killing planet,” and it manifests itself in various ways. “Saturn demands resolution and restructuring,” Tillett says. “Resolution of unfinished business and restructuring of our lives to move forward into the future.”The changes instigated by Saturn are really fantastic opportunities for those who are ready and capable of making major changes in their lives – harvesting what’s sown.“Saturn rules the responsibilities, restrictions and limitations we are apt to encounter, and the lessons we must learn in life. He does not deny or diminish imagination, inspiration, spirituality, or good fortune, but he does demand that these things be given structure and meaning,” Tillett explains.The 27s died before their Saturn returned, and Tillett postulates that other astrological factors are involved. “The 27th year is an incredibility hefty one,” he notes. “Astrologically, it’s the building up to Saturn Return, but other key factors are at work too.”Moving at less than one degree per month, it takes the moon 27 to 28 years to make it 360 degrees around the zodiac. At that point, the moon revisits its natal position: “The first progressed Lunar Return at age 27 marks the beginning of the difficult transition from the Phase of Youth to the Phase of Maturity,” Tillett says. “The pace of our lives seems to accelerate, as we hurry to clear the decks of karmic debris, in preparation for the next grand stage of the great journey of life. This transitional phase lasts until the Saturn Return, which usually occurs within a year or two.” Another strong effect occurs when the moon’s pathway crosses the sun’s course. These sensitive points are known as the moon’s nodes (also called the dragon’s head and tail). “A collision between the north and south nodes occur during the 27th year, which often generates intense insecurities that lead to major transformations of the life-path,” Tillett adds. For the 27s, Tillett theorises, “their energy is so heavily pushed into a particular channel (i.e. music) and when that channel dries up, they don’t know how to move through the pathway.”

On July 5th 1969 – as scheduled – the Rolling Stones performed at Hyde Park in front of an audience of hundreds of thousands. Before the band launched into its first song though, passages from ’Adonais’ by 19th century English poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley were read-out by Mick Jagger in memory of Brian. In his book, ‘Take a Walk on the Dark Side: Rock and Roll Myths, Legends, and Curses,’ R. Gary Patterson makes the observation that “strangely, there were a number of parallels between the life of Shelley and that of Brian Jones. Both men died before the age of thirty, both drowned, both men were considered to be outcasts from society due to their creative forces, both experimented with drugs, and both were fascinated by the occult. The passages from Shelley were more than appropriate!” Jagger read the following verses from the poem to the crowd:

Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleepHe hath awakened from the dream of life‘Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keepWith phantoms an unprofitable strife,And in mad trance, strike with our spirit’s knifeInvulnerable nothings. — We decayLike corpses in a charnel; fear and griefConvulse us and consume us day by day,And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay.

The One remains, the many change and pass;Heaven’s light forever shines, Earth’s shadows fly;Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,Stains the white radiance of Eternity,Until Death tramples it to fragments. — Die,If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek!Follow where all is fled!

The concert was recorded by a British TV-crew and then broadcast later that year although in a heavily-edited form.

Mick and Keith performing at The Stones’ 1969 Hyde Park gig.

Kenneth Anger was also filming the gig, the results of which can be seen in his 1969 11-minute short, ‘Invocation of My Demon Brother,’ which Jagger wrote and played the music for. The movie takes us through a fairly rapid succession of clips, including intermittent scenes of a funeral for a cat. The occult director talked about these particular shots during the commentary for the DVD re-release. He says, “our pet cat was hit by a car and killed,“ and in the film, “the cat is on a kind of altar – later we buried him in the front yard.” Anger also stars in the short. He can be seen performing a ceremony, which he says, took place at a California theatre in front of a live audience on the autumn equinox.

Also starring in the movie is Anton LaVey with, Anger claims, “his shrunken heads of cats.”

Anton LaVey in ‘Invocation…’

Anger has said the movie is partly based on Aleister Crowley’s novel, ‘Moonchild.’ Published in 1929, it tells the story of Lisa la Giuffria, a young woman who falls for Cyril Grey, a white magician she meets in London just prior to the First World War. He persuades her to take part in an experiment in which she must give birth to a child with a “moon-soul.” To achieve this, they travel to Italy and a secluded villa which has been tailored to “invoke the moon’s influence.” The book describes her Italian living-quarters as “designed or chosen so that it might turn the girl’s mind to the Earth’s satellite… A single scheme of colour embraced the whole suite; white, blue and silver. The tapestries, the carpets, the very ceilings, were wholly in these and no other lights… the very objects in the apartment were crescent-shaped, and the only metal in evidence was silver.” Within the walls of the villa, she spends her days making love to Grey and taking part in regular magickal rituals designed to bring about the manifestation of the Moonchild. In one particular ceremony held in the garden of the property, Lisa is renamed, Iliel. Crowley writes that this was chosen partly “on account of its sympathy of number to the moon; for the name is Hebrew, in which language its characters have the value of 81, the square of 9, the sacred number of the moon.” She’s clothed in a specially-prepared and consecrated garment of pale blue and silver “and the secret sigils of the moon were woven cunningly upon its hem.” Grey meanwhile has donned himself in goat-skins to resemble the god, Pan. He runs towards Iliel in the garden, flings her over his shoulder, and strides “triumphant” into the house. Anger has reportedly said of the connection between his ‘Invocation‘ movie and Crowley‘s novel, “there’s a ceremony in ‘Moonchild,’ and the creation of a moonchild, which is the idea that you can have a baby between two people. It usually takes two people to make a baby but not always. I mean, in other words, the legend is that there’s such a thing as the Immaculate Conception. There’s never an ‘immaculate’ conception. You can have one person and an entity, and the entity is not necessarily human. In other words, the moonchild would be the moon-spirit impregnating the woman, and the Christians would turn that and say it was the Virgin Mary. But as a matter of fact, she’s still pregnant, she still had intercourse but it wasn’t with a human – if you believe the Christian myth, which I don’t. But yes. It‘s an influence and I show the title of the book in one shot so I acknowledge the influence. And I have that title, which is the only title, that says ‘ZAP, YOU‘RE PREGNANT. THAT‘S WITCHCRAFT‘… ‘ZAP‘ is still a magickal word because it comes from the sound of electricity: ZAP – it‘s something that‘s very quick, and that‘s why I used it.” It’s said Crowley’s novel is based on his own repeated efforts to conceive a magickal child, none of which reportedly worked. One should perhaps wonder whether the Great Beast’s book was actually the inspiration behind the Rolling Stones’ track ‘Child of the Moon’ also?

Jagger’s soundtrack to ’Invocation’ was composed and played on a ‘Moog’ synthesiser, an instrument that, during the 1960s, essentially paved the way for the popularisation of electronic music in Pop & Rock. Anger claims that, after showing Mick the film, “he offered to do the soundtrack for me on the Moog synthesiser that he’d just bought, and we projected the film and he’s improvised on the Moog.”

‘SATURN RETURNS ONCE AGAIN’ – A shot from the ‘Invocation’ movie

‘Invocation of My Demon Brother’ was made up from remnants of thrown-away film-cuttings from an earlier movie-project that Anger was working on and known to all as ‘Lucifer Rising.’ The footage of it that wasn‘t binned, he claims, was stolen by Bobby Beausoloeil, a musician who’s said to have been involved in a homosexual affair with him and, as has been noted in the first instalment of this three-part article, later went on to participate in the murder of music-teacher, Gary Hinman, a killing linked to none other than Charles Manson, and which he is serving a life-sentence for. Kenneth has reportedly said, “he stole my van, he stole the film, he betrayed me. I gave him money to buy some musical things for his band, instead he went and bought a huge amount of marijuana in Mexico, and drove up in my van with my license-plates on the van, full of bales of marijuana. He stored them in my studio. He sneaked them in and stored them. Our dog began sniffing these wrapped-up plastic packages, and then I cut one open and there was all this Grass. It was my apartment and if anyone was gonna get busted I was gonna get it… So I picked up the bales, threw them down the front step, and I’m not particularly a physically hefty hunk of a guy or anything like that but when I’m mad… I picked him up by the scruff of his neck when he came home after a late date and tossed him down the front-stair. And that was the end of our relationship. But… he waited. He had a real old car that kept breaking down and everything, but I had the van… He knew I never cooked, and he waited until I went out to dinner with a friend. Then he broke into the place, stole all the film and then stole the van. So I came back and there was no van, no film, and he was gone. I knew he did it, nobody else could have done it. But he was arrested for murder two years after he left me. He left me in ’67.”
Although the links between the Rolling Stones and Charles Manson might possibly, on the face of it, look inconsequential, they are worth highlighting in this three-part retrospective due to the fact that they keep popping up in the band‘s history, and, as the saying goes, “there’s no smoke without fire.” Whether that well-known adage applies here, only you can decide. ‘Conspiro Media’ is merely laying down the connections however tenuous they might or might not seem and then leaving you to weigh them up – and here’s another one… A man by the name of Phil Kaufman. “I was working for the Rolling Stones on their album ‘Beggars Banquet,‘” he’s said. “Mick Jagger was mixing the album with his producer in LA, and I was basically looking after him, acting as his ‘executive nanny.’ Actually, he’s the one that gave me that name – somebody asked him who I was and why I was always around, and Mick replied, ‘that’s my executive nanny,’ so the name kind of stuck.” The exact details of his job with The Stones reportedly included taking care “of all the little, petty business-deals, shopping, security, booking studio-time, getting them to work on time, making sure they were comfortable in the studio, screening their calls, keeping them healthy.” However, directly prior to that, he’d been in jail, during which time he’d met and befriended fellow inmate, Charles Manson. “I was one of the marijuana felons of the sixties. I got five years in prison without probation, without parole. I met Charles… and… we just kinda got together,” he said in a TV-interview.

Manson.

Their relationship, he claims, was bolstered by a mutual interest in music. He recalls, “I heard Charles sing and I was quite impressed with him… so I got to know him… I asked him to see a friend of mine in regards to recording, and I in turn notified my friend in the recording-business that this fellow would ‘perhaps stop and see you.’ He did so at a later date, after he got out in ‘67. And it wasn’t for maybe four or five months later that he went to see my friend and they did record him. When I got out I tried to re-establish contact with him in order to further the music interest.” Indeed, Kaufman says he went and lived with Manson for two months after he was released from prison in 1968, and also claims to have got up-close and somewhat personal with the female members of the so-called ‘Family’ who would go on to take part in the grisly Tate/LaBianca killings just over a year later. He’s declared (with a smile on his face), “I’ve had sex with more murderers than anybody in show-business.” By his own accounts, his on-and-off working relationship with The Stones continued right up until around late ‘69 by which point Manson was locked-up in jail awaiting trial in relation to those notorious murders. Kaufman‘s quoted as saying, “Charlie called me when he was arrested. He said, ‘please put out my music’… He was only allowed three phone-calls a day. He used to call me every day, five days a week. He was very anxious for his music to be heard.” An album of his music titled, ’LIE: The Love and Terror Cult’ was eventually released in 1970, apparently with the help of Phil who‘s said to have raised $3,000 to have 2,000 copies of the record pressed and distributed. Songs from it have since been covered by Guns N’ Roses and The Lemonheads.

In the years that followed the release of ‘LIE,’ Kaufman went on to make a name for himself as a respected road-manager for the likes of Emmylou Harris and Etta James. This career-path, he says, came about after a conversation he’d had with Keith Richards’ friend, Gram Parsons. “Gram phoned me and asked if I’d be his road-manager, and I asked him what a road-manager does. He said I’d be doing what I’d done for The Stones; basically looking after people, except I’d be doing it on the road. I accepted, and that was it; that was the start of our relationship.” And what a relationship it turned out to be! It resulted in one of the most notorious incidents in Rock-music history. It all stems back to a pact that Kaufman claims he and Parsons made in 1973 after attending the funeral of former Byrds member, Clarence White. He’s said, “it was kind of more Gram’s idea than mine. We were at the funeral… and it was this huge Catholic funeral. We both agreed that, if he’d had the choice, Clarence wouldn’t have chosen that kind of funeral, and we realised that we still did have a choice. So we made this pact, albeit after a few sherbets: ‘If I die first, I want you to take me out to the desert and burn my body! Is it a deal?’ ‘You got it! You do it for me, I’ll do it for you!’ And that was it. We shook hands on it and that was it, it was a deal. Then, unfortunately, Gram died a couple of months later, and I felt honour-bound to see the deal through.” This he accomplished, he claims, by driving to LAX Airport (Los Angeles), where Gram’s body was being taken en-route to New Orleans, and then, with an accomplice, somehow convincing staff there to buy into their “speel” that they’d come to collect it on the express wishes of the deceased’s family. Describing this scene during a recent interview, he said, “we’re sellin’ ‘em fried ice-cream, and he’s going for it.” A policeman close by, whose suspicion also wasn’t aroused, not only helped the drunken road-manager and his partner-in-crime take possession of the corpse, but even stood by, laughed and then walked away after he saw them crash into a hangar as they were driving off.

Gram Parsons.

They eventually made their way to Joshua Tree where Kaufman poured five gallons of gasoline over the embalmed body and set it alight. And all this was achieved with the aid of a hearse which he borrowed from the woman that was said to have been with Parsons when he died, and who purchased the vehicle specifically because it was “comfortable” for camping trips. You couldn’t make this stuff up. Or could you? Of course you could. Question is, is that what’s happened here, and if so, why? Researchers have cast doubt and suspicion over the above chain of events, and the circumstances surrounding Gram’s death of a supposed “overdose” in a motel bedroom in Joshua Tree whilst on a short excursion. One particular claim is that the friends he’d been travelling with gathered-up his drugs after he’d died and before the police and ambulance arrived and then handed them over to Kaufman who hid them in the desert. He also, it’s alleged, provided Parson’s travelling companions with a hiding place, away from the cops who wanted to question them. Whilst there’s little doubt that the actual body-burning did take place, it’s been suggested it was some form of ritualistic cremation, given that it was said to have occurred on September 21st, the autumn equinox, which, ‘coincidentally,’ just so happened to fall just two days after Gram was pronounced dead. Incidentally – for the record – he died just seven weeks before his birthday, when he would’ve reached the age of 27.

Although Gram never achieved worldwide fame and commercial success during his life, he was a respected figure among his peers, helping to popularise Country-music within the Rock genre. He did this first with the groups, the International Submarine Band, The Byrds, and The Flying Burrito Brothers and then as a solo-artist. In his 2010 memoirs, ‘Life,’ Keith Richards states, “when I fell in love with Gram Parsons in the summer of 1968, I struck a seam of music that I’m still developing, which widened the range of everything I was playing and writing. Early that year he’d joined The Byrds – ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ and all that – but they’d just recorded their classic ‘Sweetheart of the Rodeo’ (album), and it was Gram who had totally turned them around from a Pop band into a Country-music band and expanded their whole being. That record, which bemused everybody at the time, turned out to be the incubator of Country Rock – a major influence. That Country influence came through in The Stones.” In the ‘YouTube‘ clip below, which is said to have been lifted from Keith Richards’ official website where it was originally posted in response to a fan’s question sometime in 2004, the Rolling Stone pays yet more tribute to Parsons, but also throws fuel to suspicions that his death might have been the result of foul-play. Whilst discussing the dead musician’s legacy and unfulfilled potential, he says, “Gram Parsons, who never actually had a hit record of his own, ever… has got one of the most solid and faithful followings of any artist that I can think of, especially given the fact that he never got to where he was gonna obviously going to go – if he’d only just kept his mouth shut. If he’d… just taken a little more care of himself – you know – it can happen all in one night. Gram was – it was just a sad and unnecessary accident in a way.” He then makes a reference to the title of Parsons’ posthumously-released solo-album, uttering the words, “Grievous. Grievous angel.” What? Is he telling us, albeit vaguely, that Parsons somehow fell foul of a person or persons who then killed him? Is it stretching the imagination too far to entertain the notion that Richards would be so candid as to reveal such a thing in public – assuming of course that’s what he’s implying? On the other hand, his comments could be nothing more than muddled observations about a man’s all-consuming, careless and ultimately fatal appetite for chucking drugs into his mouth?
Take a look and a listen for yourself…

The details surrounding Gram’s death do make for interesting reading and are worthy of further investigation. If you’re keen to find out more, take a look at the link below which documents some of the allegations and suspicious goings-on prior to and directly after he died. You also wouldn’t go far wrong checking out the new book, ‘Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon – Laurel Canyon, Covert Ops & the Dark Heart of the Hippie Dream.’ Written by researcher, David McGowan, it lifts the lid on the dark-side of the 1960s counter-culture and includes a whole chapter on Parsons’ life, as well as the questions hanging over his death, and the “ritualistic” cremation of his body by Kaufman.

Whilst it would certainly be interesting to delve into Gram Parsons’ life, death and subsequent cremation in much greater depth during this three-part retrospective, it’s perhaps best to move on, after all, this article is already brimming with more information than you could shake a witch’s broomstick at. To include more is doing so at the danger of the readers’ patience perhaps? There has to be a limit, and given that there doesn’t appear to be anything of particular relevance that connects the Rolling Stones to Gram’s untimely passing, that limit is right here it seems. Anyway, it’s not as though there’s any shortage of other people connected to the band who require further attention, such as Kenneth Anger, who, after his footage of ’Lucifer Rising’ was allegedly stolen by Manson’s friend, Bobby Beausoloeil, was so incensed, that he decided to give up film-making. Well, that was until two Stones members and Marianne Faithfull stepped in. Speaking to ‘Interview’ magazine, he said, “I have quite a lot of friends, and Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Marianne Faithfull, and other friends of mine encouraged me to continue to make film. And they helped me out, they bought me some actual rolls of film as a present, to say, ‘here, make some more film.’” Anger resumed work on ‘Lucifer Rising’ and offered Jagger the lead role. The director has since recalled that the Rolling Stones front-man “said, ‘oh, yes.’ He was playing around at this time with – and part of it was my influence – a kind of Satanic image… Mick was going to be Lucifer, Keith was going to be Beezlebub, and Brian Jones was going to be Astraroth – these are all princes of Hell. He backed away because he was afraid of being too closely identified with the Devil.” However, his younger brother, Chris Jagger, did go on to star, as did Marianne Faithfull. She played Lilith, “a powerful female demon from the Babylonian times,“ so says Anger. Shot at a number of locations across the world including Stonehenge in England, and at Giza in Egypt, he states in a 2013 interview that the film is “about the Egyptian gods summoning the angel Lucifer in order to usher in a new occult age, in accordance with the principles of O.T.O. (‘Ordo Templi Orientis’)“ – (the OTO of course being the name of the occult order that Aleister Crowley was a member of). Furthermore, commenting on Marianne Faithfull’s behaviour during the making of the movie, the director recalls that she “says I hypnotised her and forced her to do things against her will. I didn’t. When I took her to Egypt, she was addicted to heroin and had the nerve to carry some in her makeup box under the face powder, so it just looked like just another form of powder. If she had been arrested or discovered, we all would have been shot – that was the penalty then.” In a 2010 interview, he even goes as far to suggest that “she was powdering her face with heroin” from that very makeup box. Marianne herself has admitted that she was “a hopeless junkie” whilst taking part in the filming of ‘Lucifer Rising’ but has also claimed that “Kenneth liked the idea I was in a weakened state.“ She recalls one particular day during the shoot when she was required to climb a mountain. “We were filming on the morning of the winter solstice,” she remembers. “The sun was coming up. There I was, Dope-sick, climbing the mountain. When I got to the top I remember seeing the sun shining through the aperature and hitting the rock, and then I blacked out completely… I think I lost consciousness for a second and when I came to I realised I was falling off the mountain. I came to as I was tumbling through the air and remembered in mid-fall that I had to do some somersaults and land on my feet. Which I did. They rushed me to hospital and did a million tests and I was fine… Kenneth would’ve liked me to fall off the mountain and die. It would have been a magnificent climax for his film. I never believed Kenneth had any power at all. I was willing to believe he was a great film-maker and I may have been wrong about that, too, because when I came to work with him it didn’t seem as if he knew what he was doing either. As inept as Kenneth was, I knew he was dangerous in a way and I knew that simply by being in the film I was involving myself in a magic act far more potent than Kenneth’s hocus-pocus Satanism. Smearing myself with ‘Max Factor’ blood and crawling around an Arab graveyard at 5 am as the sun rose over the pyramids was absolute insanity. To be that passive, to let someone like that make me perform a ritualistic act of such ghoulish proportions, was just mindless. I used to feel that a lot of the bad luck in my life came from that film. The reason I never tell this story is because it’s unbelievable… you don’t tell people these things. People think you’re raving.” In his book, ‘Up and Down with the Rolling Stones,’ Tony Sanchez claims he was “just a little afraid of Kenneth,” as were others close to and within the band. “Again and again,” he recalls, “inexplicable things involving him would happen.” The author notes two examples. One involves a party he attended back in the ’60s and which had been organised by Robert Fraser, the reputed London art-dealer. “Fraser arranged an opening-party for some white sculptures that John Lennon and Yoko Ono had created,” Sanchez states. “It was a zany party with all the guests dressed in white. We were even forced to drink a white mineral water. I saw Kenneth clearly at the party, but when I went across to talk to him, he seemed to have vanished. I thought little of it until that afternoon when Anita, Marianne, Keith and Mick all said that they too had seen Kenneth but had been unable to find him when they wanted to talk to him. ‘Anyway,’ said Anita, ‘it’s very strange because Kenneth told me he wouldn’t be able to come to the exhibition because he was going to be away on business in Germany.’ Kenneth didn’t return to London for two weeks, and by then numerous other people who had been at the party – John, Yoko, Robert – all remarked on having seen Kenneth across the crowded room, but having been unable to speak to him. Eventually we asked almost everyone who had been there if he or she had spoken to him – and none of them had. ‘Were you there?’ I asked him one day. And he only laughed.”

Saturn keeps returning… Kenneth Anger.

Sanchez continues, “on another occasion, Kenneth came with Robert, me and a couple of other friends for coffee at a little club called ‘The Costa Blanca’ off Tottenham Court Road (London). We drove there in my Alfa Romeo and walked together to the bar. Kenneth was standing right beside me. ‘Five coffees, please,’ I said, then turned around to find that Kenneth had vanished. ‘Where is he?’ I asked. And nobody knew. So I went out into the street to see if he was there, and though there wasn’t a corner for two hundred yards in each direction, he wasn’t there either. Even if he had sprinted down the road like Mercury, he couldn’t possibly have vanished so quickly. We didn’t see Kenneth again for another month.” Sanchez states in no uncertain terms that “what is indisputable is that Anger does appear to have certain powers.” A self-proclaimed “magician,” Anger himself is quoted as saying, “magick is…either you understand it and appreciate it, or it just passes you by. It isn’t something you turn on and off – either it’s there, or it’s not. It’s there for me because I’ve studied the subject all my life and I don’t need to impress anybody or show them tricks or anything.” He’s also known to have once stated that “making a movie is casting a spell.” With regards to one movie in particular, ‘Lucifer Rising,’ he’s reported to have said, “I’m a pagan and the film is a real invocation of Lucifer. The film contained real black magicians, a real ceremony, real altars, real human blood, and a real magic-circle consecrated with blood and cum.” His friend and fellow Stones associate, Donald Cammell stars in the film as the Egyptian god, Osiris, and there’s also a brief appearance by Crowley fan, Jimmy Page. The Led Zeppelin guitarist was commissioned to write and play the soundtrack music too but was eventually sidelined and replaced with Anger’s old friend Bobby Beausoleil who composed and recorded his own version in prison. Thanks to the use of old footage shot prior to his earlier bust-up with the director, he also appears in the film, as well as in the short, ‘Invocation of My Demon Brother.’

Kenneth Anger: “That’s Bobby Beusoleil sucking on a skull. That’s a reefer posed in a skull which is a kind of exotic way of smoking.”

In ‘Invocation,’ images of Beausoleil merge into Anger’s footage of The Stones’ Hyde Park concert. He never fades out of view completely though. He’s there in the background as clips of Jagger, Faithfull, Richards, and Pallenberg appear briefly before us on the screen.
Given the benefit of hindsight, one can’t help but see something darkly poetic in the visual union of Manson’s murderer-in-waiting and members of this particularly notorious Rock-group…

The Hyde Park gig was The Stones’ first live concert appearance in over two years and it was followed by a one-month US tour beginning in November ‘69. The band’s return to the stage however, would be stained with blood, and their reputation as agents of Satan would be strengthened as a result, whether they liked it or not. Raymond ‘Ossie’ Clark, the renowned fashion designer lauded as a pivotal figure in 1960s /‘70s culture and credited with notching-up clients such as The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Twiggy, and Elizabeth Taylor, has been quoted as saying, “one night I was at Mick’s house in London – I was designing the costumes for this 1969 tour. He’d put on a tape of the music that would be played on the tour and he’d dance around and say, ‘I’d like to do this and that,’ and we kind of evolved our costume ideas together. But for this trip, our costume-night was different. Mick danced around with great intensity and he was telling me in a stream of what seemed subconscious feelings, somewhat incoherent, what he wanted to convey. It was more than just describing costumes or anything like that, it was as if he had become Satan and was announcing his evil intentions. He was revelling in his role. Frightening, truly frightening… this was a side of Mick never revealed before. He was rejoicing in being Lucifer.”

Ossie Clark, 1969.

Clark is also said to have been disturbed by what he saw unfold before him at an actual concert from that Stones tour, reportedly saying, “we went out and took our seats, The Stones appeared, the first note was played and the whole place erupted like a tiger roaring, I almost blacked out. This was not the wave of adulation I was accustomed to hearing, no, this was like a mob being exhorted by a dictator. And then when Mick went into his Lucifer routine, the audience seemed to spit out its defiance. He introduced himself as ‘a man of wealth and taste’ who had been around a long time, had taken men’s souls, and achieved a catalogue of Satanic triumphs. I was trembling I was so frightened. And the more the audience’s reaction intensified, the more Mick baited them. I expected a riot, an explosion. I escaped before the concert ended, went back to the house, packed my bag, and immediately left for New York. Even when I got to New York I couldn’t shake off the scary, ominous feelings of that night. It stayed with me. For a week or more after that, I’d wake in the night with a heavy sweat.” According to a number of accounts, there were seriously strange vibes floating around the Altamont Free Festival in California, a music-event held on a raceway track and partly instigated and organised by the Rolling Stones. It culminated in the fatal stabbing of 18-year-old audience-member, Meredith Hunter whilst the band were performing in front of him in the early hours of a December morning in 1969. He’d got locked into an altercation with members of the Hells Angels, the notorious motorcycle club which, it’s said, was hired to take care of security, although this has been denied by some who were closely involved with the gig. The reputed photographer, Ethan Russell, who’s shot album-covers for The Beatles and The Who during his lengthy career, was with The Stones at Altamont. He wasn’t impressed with what he saw from the start. For him, the location of the venue “was a dull, lifeless landscape. There was no hint of green, not a tree, not a blade of grass. When we arrived there was no palpable feeling of joy or even happiness. It slowly dawned on me that this concert might not turn out to be what I expected. Mick Jagger had no such luck. His realisation came instantly.” Russell is referring to the moment when the Rock-star was punched in the face by a seemingly random person. Mick Taylor is reported to have said of the incident, “about five minutes after we arrived, just after we got out of the helicopter, I was with Mick and there were a couple of security guards with us, and a guy broke through and punched Mick in the face.” Ethan states that Stanley Booth, the music journalist, was also a witness to this, quoting him as saying, “’Mick got off the first helicopter with Ronnie (Schneider, Stones tour manager) when a kid comes running up to Mick and says: ‘I hate you,’ or something, and punches Mick right in the mouth.” Schneider, according to Russell, recalls, “I remember Mick screaming: ‘Don’t hurt him, don’t hurt him!’ Me, I wanted to kill the guy right away. That set the tone.” One of those who performed at the festival, which commenced on December 6th, was Carlos Santana. He’s reported as saying, “there was bad vibes from the beginning. The vibrations were really strange.” Fellow Altamont performer, Grace Slick, who was a singer with the Jefferson Airplane at the time, is also said to have picked up on the “strange” vibrations that day recalling that “the vibes were bad. Something was very peculiar, not particularly bad, just real peculiar. I had expected the loving vibes of Woodstock but that wasn’t coming at me. This was a whole different thing.” The magazine, ‘Rolling Stone,’ in a special Altamont issue published shortly after the event, reported that “a chick toward the front of the stage” on the opening-day of the festival “was telling her old man: ‘It’s weird. They consulted the astrologers before setting the dates for Woodstock, but they couldn’t have consulted an astrologer about today. Anyone can see that with the moon in Scorpio, today’s an awful day to do this concert. There’s a strong possibility of violence and chaos and any astrologer could have told them so. Oh well, maybe The Stones know something I don’t know.’” Yes… maybe they did know something… but what, exactly?
The Stones took to the stage the following morning at around 4 am. Mick Taylor is quoted as describing the scene before him as “completely barbaric, like there was so much violence there it completely took the enjoyment out of it for me . . . it was impossible . . . to enjoy the music, or anything, because most of the violence was going on right in front of the stage, right in front of our eyes, and like I’ve never seen anything like it before. I just couldn’t believe it. The Hells Angels had a lot to do with it. The people that were working with us getting the concert together thought it would be a good idea to have them as a security force. But I got the impression that because they were a security force they were using it as an excuse. They’re just very, very violent people.” The Angels helped the band make their entrance onto the stage by creating a path for them in the audience with their bikes. In the Stones-sanctioned documentary, ’Gimme Shelter,’ drummer, Charlie Watts can be seen sharing his recollection of this – and, it must be noted, with some evident signs of fondness and awe. “I mean, the way they cleared the path, for instance was incredible, man,” he says smiling. “My goodness. That was insane.”

The Angels making a pathway.

The Stones’ performance at Altamont, and the horrors which unfolded before them as they played, are featured in the documentary, ’Gimme Shelter’ which picks up on their set some two songs in when they launch into ‘Sympathy for the Devil,’ but not before Jagger addresses the crowd in a soft, almost effeminate manner, asking them to “just be cool down the front there and don’t push around. Just keep still, keep together.” His delicate, calls for calm fall on deaf ears however. He stops singing midway through the first verse when a scuffle or altercation of some kind appears to be taking place just yards from him down below in amongst the audience which retreats ands forms a space between itself and the violence apparently taking place in front of it. Hells Angels, who’ve made their way to the front of the stage, jump off into the large empty void and push back the crowd even further. The Stones stop playing, and once again, Jagger makes an appeal. “Hey. Hey people. Sisters. Brothers and sisters. Brothers and sisters. Come on now. That means everybody, just cool out! Will you cool out everybody? Everybody be cool now, come on. Alright?” Then, he adds, “we always having something very funny happens when we start that number.” How interesting. Does this mean that ‘Sympathy for the Devil,’ when performed live, possesses some form of power over people ultimately driving them to violence and/or disorderliness? In essence, that’s what Jagger appears to be suggesting. Does he not? This prompts another question; Given that the atmosphere at Altamont on that December morning back in 1969 was – to put it mildly – highly volatile, why did the band, in-between its appeals for peace, launch back into the song from the beginning again once the crowd had calmed down and made its way back to the front of the stage? Not a sensible move if you’re keen to avoid any flare-up in tension, surely? After all, if, as Jagger himself acknowledges, “something very funny happens when we start that number,” maybe it’d be good to ditch the intro and pick up mid-verse from where they’d left off? Or better still, drop the number entirely and move on? Just think; Was there really any need to play that song, especially when there was a risk it could add fuel to a potential riot? Was it necessary?… Was it? If it was, then for what purpose? Whatever their reasons, back into ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ they went. However, as can be seen in the documentary, it isn’t long before there’s signs of trouble again. A dancing, shaking, singing Jagger stops abruptly and stands-still halfway through his performance and looks out over the crowd as the band play on behind him. It’s not clear what’s caught his attention exactly, but it wouldn’t stretch the imagination to assume that there’s some form of scuffle taking place. An audience-member situated at the front of the stage also appears to be checking it out. He then looks up at the Stones front-man, shakes his head disapprovingly and says something to him.

LOOK OF DISAPPROVAL?… Crowd-member stares up at Jagger.

Due to the sheer volume of the music, it’s not clear what the guy in the audience has said to Jagger, although he seems to be exclaiming the word, “why?” The documentary-footage doesn’t give any clues as to the singer’s reaction. Within seconds, though, he’s shaking and clapping to the rhythms of ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ again whilst the crowd-member looks on and shouts something at him….

… No matter, Jagger works the stage dressed from neck to waist in what some might perceive to be ‘Satanic colours’; a black and red shirt, said to have been designed specially by Ossie Clark.

According to high-ranking Freemason and author, Leon Zeldis, the colour red “is traditionally associated with war and the military. The colour of blood is naturally connected with the idea of sacrifice. In Hebrew, it is the colour of youth. It also has a darker side, connected with the flames of hell, the appearance of demons, the apoplectic of rage. Traditionally, black is the colour of darkness, death, the underworld… The ‘black humour’ of melancholy (atara hills) the black crow of ill omen, the black mass: all refer to negative aspects.” Black is also associated with… wait for it… Saturn. The German 16th century occultist and writer, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, states in his work, ’Philosophy of Natural Magic,’ that “all colours as black, lucid, earthy, leaden, or brown, have relation to Saturn.” For a deeper analysis, let’s look inside the 1967 book, ‘The Black Arts: A Concise History of Witchcraft, Demonology, Astrology, and Other Mystical Practises Throughout the Ages.’ It’s written by the British historian, Richard Cavendish, an author who’s well known for his knowledge of subjects to do with the occult. He writes, “most of us do not associate the colour green, copper, the number 7, the dove, the sparrow, and the swan together in our minds, but in magical theory these things are linked because they all connected with the force of Venus, the universal current of love. These connections are part of what is called a ‘system of correspondences.’ From the earliest times men tried to understand the way in which the world is constructed by classifying all the features of the universe in terms of the gods who controlled them. Magicians have followed suit, substituting the great driving forces of the universe for the gods. Everything is classified in terms of the force with which it is connected. The system is extremely detailed, but the oldest and most important part of it is the set of links between planets, metals and colours.” For example, the darkest and heaviest of the metals, lead “was naturally assigned to Saturn, the dimmest and slowest-moving planet, which trudges heavily through its slow path round the sun. In the old cosmology Saturn is the farthest planet from the sun, the ruler of life, and is the lord of death. The analogy between death and night was drawn very early. Black is the colour of night and the colour invariably associated with death in western countries.” The colour red “is connected with Mars through several chains of association” including the fact that “the planet has a reddish look… Red is the colour of blood and Mars was the god of bloodshed and war. The war-chiefs of Rome in early times painted themselves bright red with vermillion and the same custom has been found among other primitive peoples. Red is the colour of energy and vitality and in astrology, Mars rules all forms of violent energy and activity. The word for red in most languages is based on the fact that red is the colour of blood. Our ’red,’ Greek ’eruthros’ and Latin ’ruber’ and ’rufus’ are all akin to Sanskrit ’rudhira,’ ’blood.’ The number 5 also corresponds to Mars and the magician lights five candles and has pentagrams drawn or embroidered on his robe. These things arouse and control the force of Mars because they are connected with it in the universe.”

In the documentary, Jagger struts, spins, gyrates and shakes as ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ plays on. His face, blanketed in lights coloured red, writhes with expressions of pleasure, of joy, of ecstasy – almost like a man immersed in devilish bliss perhaps?…

“In a ceremony of hatred and destruction, the magician uses things which are red or made of iron. He drapes the room in which he is working in crimson hangings. He wears a scarlet robe.” – Richard Cavendish.

In fairness to Jagger (a performer famed for working the stage to its fullest), the above facial expressions might possibly be the signs of a consummate entertainer making the best of a bad situation, dancing on regardless of the tense vibes in a bid to convince his audience to do likewise, to lighten the mood, to enjoy the music, to stop fighting. In fact, in the documentary footage, you can hear the Stones front-man rapping the words, “everybody gotta cool down” above the beats of ’Sympathy.’ Mick Taylor has since reportedly said, “Mick did his best to cool the people out. He was doing everything in his power to cool them out.” You can judge Jagger’s behaviour and his possible intentions for yourself by checking out the footage of the performance in the video-clip further on down this page.

‘BAD VIBES’… The documentary-cameras focus on a tear-stained member of the audience at the front of the stage.

The documentary hones in on a limp, motionless body being passed down the audience to the front of the stage as the closing-bars of ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ reach their end. Jagger shouts, “people… who’s fighting and what for? Why are we fighting!? Why are we fighting!? We don’t want to fight! Come on.” Keith Richards then steps forward, pointing his finger into the audience. He calls out, “look! Cat! That guy there, if he doesn’t stop it, man. Listen, either those cats cool it, man, or we don’t play,” The film doesn’t show us who he’s addressing. An unidentified voice from the stage then bellows out, “we need doctors down here now, please… Can we have a doctor down here now to the front?” Jagger takes the mic and says, “I cannot see what’s going on, I just know that every time we get to a number, something happens. I don’t know what’s going on – who’s doing what. It’s just a scuffle. I can’t do any more than just ask you… beg you, just keep it together. You can do it, it’s within your power, everyone. Everyone, Hells Angels, everybody. Let’s just keep ourselves together.” He then shouts, “you know, if we are all one, let’s show we’re all one!” A few seconds later, the opening-beats of the number, ‘Under My Thumb’ begin. Jagger calmly asks the crowd to “sit down just keep cool and let’s just relax, let’s just get into a groove, come on, we can get it together. Sit down.” As the song ends though, we see a wide, empty space forming in the audience again. There’s trouble, and there’s Meredith Hunter at the edge of the rapidly receding crowd, recognisable by his bright green jacket and trousers. A Hells Angel comes lunging at him, making stabbing-like motions into the 18-year-old before pushing him out of shot into the darkness. Below, some screenshots of this moment (click to enlarge)…

In the next screen-cap (below), you can almost make out what looks to be a knife in the Hells Angel’s hand as he advances into Hunter…

Bill Wyman was recently quoted as saying, “’Mick Taylor and I were the ones nearest to it. We saw the crowd open up and the guy chase the other guy right in front of us. We both saw the commotion when the guy got stabbed. We saw the whole thing, and my heart skipped a beat.” In the documentary, we see people tending to a stretcher. There’s a bloodstained sleeve hanging out from underneath a blanket that‘s been strapped into it, and it’s the same shade of green as worn by Meredith Hunter. We can’t see him. The face has been covered. We can also hear a voice say, “we pronounced him dead at six o’clock.“

The documentary ends shortly after although, in reality, the Stones’ performance carried on for a good while longer. Mick Taylor has reportedly said, “I think at one point we might have walked off stage, but that would have been a disaster. We just had to carry on and play the best we could. We played longer than we would have done because we had to keep stopping all the time. We still did a complete show. We must have been on stage for about an hour-and-a-half. It seemed like ages.” In his memoirs, ‘Life,’ Keith Richards claims, “when it happened, nobody knew he’d been stabbed to death. The show went on. We all piled into this overloaded chopper. Thank God we got out of there, because it was hairy. Nobody knew what had happened until we’d gotten back to the hotel later or even the next morning.”

As noted in the first instalment of this three-part retrospective, The Stones were no strangers when it came to playing in front of riotous, destructive crowds. Jerry Garcia, a founder-member of The Grateful Dead, one of the bands scheduled to appear on the Altamont bill, picked up on this during a 1971 interview when he was asked to offer his perspective on the event. “Well, see, the Rolling Stones never did have a cool audience,” he began. “When they started playing, people were screaming. Then they knocked off for two or three years and now they come back, and it’s back to screaming. It was a trick. You know, Mick Jagger would make his little speech about ‘turn on the lights so we can see you,’ and the lights would go on, and everybody would scream and run up to the stage. It was so predictable. They knew it would work… that’s the thing that’s going for it. It’s like the magicians, like Cagliostro, man, you know what I mean? One of those trips. If you get to the point where you’re playing music and you can’t get off unless the crowd tears itself to pieces and attacks the stage, it’s kind of like sinking your teeth way in. It’s taking more than you need. I don’t know if it’s a question of wanting to be stars, but they definitely want to have that excitement goin’ on, they want to have that hysteria. For what reason, who knows?” For what reason indeed. In his book, ‘Up and Down with the Rolling Stones,’ Tony Sanchez provides a possible answer. He quotes from a letter which is said to have been sent to ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine shortly after the gig. It reads:

To those who know, it’s been obvious that The Stones, or at least some of them, have been involved in the practise of magick ever since the ‘Satanic Majesties Request’ album. But there at least the colour was more white than black. Since then the hue had gone steadily darker and darker. At Altamont, He appeared in his full majesty with his full consort of demons, the Hells Angels. It was just a few days before the winter solstice when the forces of darkness are at their most powerful. The moon was in Scorpio, which is the time of the month when the universal vibration is at its most unstable. It was held in a place dedicated to destruction through motion. Then Mick comes on only after it is dark enough for the red lights to work their magick. I don’t know if they were truly aware of what they were doing or not. I feel they are sadder and wiser from the experience. But an agonising price was paid for the lesson.

Marianne Faithfull has stated that “by then, Mick and Keith felt themselves immortal and untouchable, as if they couldn’t put a foot wrong. They hadn’t thought about the consequences of what they were putting out, the random acts of madness. They had no idea of the demonic forces that were gathering. They made jokes about this stuff, because in England, The Apocalypse is a Biblical concept. In the States, given the mix of fantasy and real-life – especially in the hippie culture – it seemed a definite possibility. The Stones took none of this seriously. Anita and I, being women, were a bit less cynical about these things.”

The Stones’ ‘Gimme Shelter’ documentary, directed by the world-famous Maysles brothers, was released in 1970. It features moments from their US live tour of ‘69 although much of the attention is centred on their Altamont appearance and the trouble that ensues right in front of them as they play including, of course, the slaying of Meredith Hunter. His sister, Dixie Ward, is said to have never watched it, which is entirely understandable of course. She’s quoted as saying, “I never wanted to see him running for his life, to know what happened when he took his last breath. You have to understand, I raised him as my child, practically.” However, according to a ‘Rolling Stone’ article published a few months before the release of the film, it was “the remarkable footage of Hunter’s killing“ that actually made it “the hottest film property of 1970” amongst movie-studio bosses. The less enthused meanwhile, such as author, David McGowan, have branded it a “mainstream snuff film.” He’s also drawn attention to reports published in ‘Rolling Stone’ shortly after the tragedy and “based on the accounts of several reporters on the scene,” including one that clearly states the stabbing of Meredith Hunter occurred during the band’s performance of ‘Sympathy for the Devil.’ Indeed, in an online version of an old issue of the magazine dating back to January 1970 and available on its website, there is such an account. This version of events is also based, McGowan writes in his ‘Laurel Canyon‘ book, on “a review of the unedited film-stock.” He adds, “most accounts claim that Hunter was killed while the band performed ‘Under My Thumb.’ All such claims are based on ‘Gimme Shelter,’ in which the killing was deliberately presented out of sequence.” If you’ve watched the documentary, then you might indeed have witnessed possible signs of this yourself. It is crudely-edited in places and there are moments when the visuals and the audio do appear to be out of sync. McGowan continues, “in the absence of any alternative filmic versions of Hunter’s death, the Maysles brothers’ film became the default official orthodoxy. Of course, someone went to great lengths to insure that there would be only one available version of events; as ‘Rolling Stone’ reported, shortly after the concert: ‘One weird Altamont story has to do with a young Berkeley film-maker who claims to have gotten 8MM footage of the killing. He got home from the affair Saturday and began telling friends about his amazing film. His house was knocked over the next night, completely rifled. The thief took only his film, nothing else.’” ‘Conspiro Media’ has managed to ascertain that this quote most likely dates back to an article in the February 7th 1970 issue of ‘Rolling Stone.’
An earlier edition of the magazine from January 1970, and largely dedicated to the Altamont tragedy, ran under the headline, ’Let It Bleed,’ presumably in fittingly-spooky reference to the Rolling Stones’ album of the same name which just so happened to have been released a day before the event on December 5th 1969.

On this album, the follow-up to ‘Beggar’s Banquet,’ there’s the track, ‘Midnight Rambler.’ Keith claims his inspiration for it came from “one of those phrases taken out of sensationalist headlines that only exist for a day. You just happen to be looking at a newspaper, ‘Midnight Rambler on the loose again.’ Oh, I’ll have him.” More specifically, it’s said to be about the ‘Boston Strangler,’ a name attributed to a serial killer connected to the deaths of thirteen women between 1962 and 1964. All the victims with the exception of two, were asphyxiated. One was stabbed to death. Most of them were sexually assaulted. In the 1975 book, ‘Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape,’ TV/print journalist and activist, Susan Brownmiller states that this notorious figure has “been memorialised by Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones” in ’Midnight Rambler’ “one of their most theatrical numbers.“ When performed on stage, she writes, “Mick’s scarves, his own personal trademark, become the strangler’s garrotte.” To illustrate her point, she quotes directly from a Press-review of a Stones gig which describes not only what takes place on stage when the song is played, but the reaction of the audience too:

Keith Richards sways through a long, threateningly erotic guitar introduction as Mick slowly removes a bright gold sash. On the first line, ’you’ve heard about the Boston Strangler,’ the lights suddenly dim and Jagger is outlined in a deep red floodlight. He slinks around the stage, a slim-hipped, multi-sexual reincarnation of Jack the Ripper. Grasping the sash like a whip he brings it down with a crack… “Me, me,” they shout. “Hit me, Mick.”

In the song, Jagger exclaims, “I’m called the hit-and-run raper in anger. The knife-sharpened tippie-toe. Or just the shoot ‘em dead, brain bell jangler. You know, the one you never seen before.” Brownmiller describes ’Midnight Rambler’ as “Jagger’s orgasmic, heightened reaction on stage of the rape/murder of 23-year-old Beverly Samans, the most viciously mutilated of the Strangler’s victims.” The author points to similarities between the lyrics of the song and the young woman’s killing as described in the 1968 book, ‘The Boston Strangler.’

The ‘Let It Bleed’ album.

Authored by Gerold Frank, it quotes the recollections of Alfred DeSalvo, the man who, in 1967, confessed to the serial-slayings and who’s reported as saying that he “was going to have intercourse” with Beverly “and she began talking: ‘You promised, you said you wouldn’t do it to me, don’t, don’t, I’ll get pregnant.’ The words kept coming and coming… I can still hear her saying: ‘Don’t do it – don’t do that to me.’” Halfway into the studio-version of ‘Midnight Rambler,’ Jagger can be heard repeatedly riffing the words, “don’t you do that, don’t do that.” This is carried over into the live renditions (one of which you can watch below from a concert in Texas in 1972). Another similarity comes at the end of the number when the Stones front-man shouts the words, “I’ll stick my knife right down your throat, baby. And it hurts!” Of all the Strangler’s victims, Beverly Samans was one of the two not to have been asphyxiated. She was however stabbed four times in the neck. ‘Midnight Rambler’ has also come in for criticism from Professor Jane Caputi, a specialist in the study of popular culture, environmental feminism, and gender and violence. In her 1987 book, ‘The Age of Sex Crime,’ she reflects on Brownmiller’s observations of The Stones’ live performance of the song and opines, “such a song and such a Rock concert are quite literally a re-creation, for this is definitive ritual, the dramatisation of the paradigmatic event with the performer assuming the persona or mask of the hero. Jagger is sacralising, glorifying the event and the killer. The ritual of the song and performance invite millions of male listeners over the years to identify with the Strangler/Ripper via their hero, Mick Jagger, and millions of women to identify with the silenced victim. Moreover, the message that surfaces here is one that is usually only communicated subliminally, i.e. the sexual criminal, not only the rapist, but also the mutilation murderer, functions as a hero to his culture.”

MIDNIGHT RAMBLERDid you hear about the midnight ramblerEverybody got to goDid you hear about the midnight ramblerThe one that shut the kitchen doorHe don’t give a hoot of warningWrapped up in a black cat cloakHe don’t go in the light of the morningHe split the time the cock’rel crowsTalkin’ about the midnight gamblerThe one you never seen beforeTalkin’ about the midnight gamblerDid you see him jump the garden wallSighin’ down the wind so sadListen and you’ll hear him moanTalkin’ about the midnight gamblerEverybody got to goDid you hear about the midnight ramblerWell, honey, it’s no rock ‘n’ roll showWell, I’m talkin’ about the midnight gamblerYeah, the one you never seen before

Well you heard about the Boston…It’s not one of thoseWell, talkin’ ’bout the midnight…sh…The one that closed the bedroom doorI’m called the hit-and-run raper in angerThe knife-sharpened tippie-toe…Or just the shoot ’em dead, brainbell janglerYou know, the one you never seen beforeSo if you ever meet the midnight ramblerComing down your marble hallWell he’s pouncing like proud black pantherWell, you can say I, I told you soWell, don’t you listen for the midnight ramblerPlay it easy, as you goI’m gonna smash down all your plate glass windowsPut a fist, put a fist through your steel-plated doorDid you hear about the midnight ramblerHe’ll leave his footprints up and down your hallAnd did you hear about the midnight gamblerAnd did you see me make my midnight callAnd if you ever catch the midnight ramblerI’ll steal your mistress from under your noseI’ll go easy with your cold fanged angerI’ll stick my knife right down your throat, babyAnd it hurts!

——————-

As noted earlier in this article, Marianne Faithfull has often claimed that both Jagger and Richards approached matters concerning the occult with a rather cavalier and somewhat lightweight attitude. In her memoirs she states (cheekily), “the most indelible misconception to come out of ‘Let It Bleed’ was the silly notion of Mick as the disciple of Satan. A devotee of satin perhaps!” She also recalls that both of them thought Kenneth Anger “laughable. Mick and Keith were utterly contemptuous of his Satanic hocus-pocus. They thought it was idiotic.” Really? Then why did Jagger collaborate with him on one of his movies, and where did the inspiration come for the ’Devil’ tattoo that the singer shamelessly wore on his chest on ’Rock and Roll Circus’? It’s also worth pointing out that the director reportedly lived with Richards at his Redlands home for a time, so maybe the Stones guitarist didn’t view him with too much contempt either? Perhaps Marianne’s observations are based on a couple of incidents that are said to have occurred and which, if true, appear to have marked an end in some shape or form to Anger’s relationship with both men? For example, recollecting one event in particular that she claims took place at the London home she shared with Jagger at the time, she recalls, “Kenneth was obsessed with The Stones. He clearly had a crush on Mick and for a while Mick indulged him. He was entertaining and appropriately creepy, but when his protestations went unanswered and he took to hurling copies of William Blake through the windows… Mick took all our magic books and made a great pyre of them in the fireplace.” The incident involving Richards was a tad more dramatic although the setting is similar given that it is said to have taken place within the walls of another Stones-pad; the infamous Redlands. Sometime during late ‘69, and not long after the Altamont tragedy, Anger suggested that Keith should wed Anita in a pagan ceremony. So the story goes, Pallenberg was being threatened with deportation from the UK due to her dual Italian/German nationality status. In a bid to remain in the country, she and Richards considered marrying. In itself, the two of them getting hitched wasn’t such a far-fetched idea – after all – the pair were already an item with a four-month-old son, their relationship having begun in 1967 following Anita’s split with Brian Jones in the wake of a particularly unpleasant trip to Morocco (check out Part One of this article for more on this). Tony Sanchez claims he was present at Redlands when Anger was discussing the pagan wedding idea with the couple. Anita, he recalls, was enthused by the prospect. The director told them that there were “certain formalities” that had to be carried out if they were intending to go ahead such as painting the door of the house where the ceremony’s to be held in gold “with a magical paint containing special herbs which represents the sun.” Anger, following their discussion, eventually went home and Richards and Pallenberg retired to their bedroom. Sanchez, who claims he was staying at Redlands at the time, states in his book, ’Up and Down with the Rolling Stones,’ that he “checked to ensure that the big, heavy three-inch thick mahogany door was firmly locked” before turning in himself. He continues, “the next morning I was awakened by Anita yelling hysterically to Keith from the hallway. I pulled on my dressing-gown and ran downstairs to see what the commotion was about. ’Look, Tony, look,’ she screamed, pointing to the door. I was astonished to discover that it had been fastidiously painted inside and out in gold. The paintwork was completely dry and was so immaculate that it was obvious that the craftsmen who had carried out the job had removed the huge door from its hinges first. ’It must have been Kenneth, but I can’t work out how he did it,’ said Keith. ’The security people put the strongest lock you can buy on that door, and there’s no way anyone could have got hold of a spare key.’” Not only that, the Rolling Stone went on, but how did he manage to take the door off its hinges in the middle of the night without being heard and then carry out such a flawless job in the dark? Anita’s response to this was to suggest Kenneth must’ve summoned up one of his magic powers to help him. Sanchez recalls, “we all looked at one another, and I saw fear in Keith’s and Anita’s eyes. ’I don’t want to go through with any black magic wedding,’ said Keith. ’This thing’s gone far enough.’” Tony claims that “Keith began to shy away from magic then, although publicly both he and Jagger had discovered that Satanism sold records, so they continued to foster a demonic image for themselves.” Indeed, The Stones certainly did continue to display signs of the “demonic” in the years that followed. But should we accept what Sanchez alleges, that this was nothing more sinister than a cynical exercise designed to sell more records? That’s debateable, isn‘t it? Perhaps it’s best not to answer that just yet seeing as ‘Conspiro Media’ has more to delve into both here and in the third and final instalment of this retrospective. However, this is as good a place as any to remind ourselves of a question posed nearer the beginning of this article regarding the band’s associations with aspects of the occult and in particular the ’Satanic’ – that being; what was their intent? Again – suspend any conclusions you might’ve reached until you’ve read Part Three, but do take the time (if you’re interested) to mull over what’s been revealed thus far.

Tony Sanchez.

Now, if we’re to believe Sanchez, it would appear that certain members of the group had possibly strayed too far towards and into the darker side for their own comfort, i.e. Richards’ alleged decision to “shy away from magic” following his experience at Redlands with Kenneth Anger, although – again – as we’ll see in the third and final instalment, there’s information to suggest that he remained dangerously close to magic(k)al influences for a number of years to come whether he liked it or not. In an interview for ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine in August 1971 he said, “Kenneth Anger told me I was his right-hand man. It’s just what you feel. Whether you’ve gotten that good and evil thing together. Left-hand path, right-hand path, how far do you want to go down? Once you start, there’s no going back. Where they lead to is another thing. It’s something everybody ought to explore. There are possibilities there. Before, when we were just innocent kids out for a good time, they’re saying, ‘they’re evil, they’re evil.’ Oh I’m evil, really? So that makes you start thinking about evil. What is evil? Half of it, I don’t know how much people think of Mick as the Devil or as just a good Rock performer or what? There are black magicians who think we are acting as unknown agents of Lucifer and others who think we are Lucifer. Everybody’s Lucifer.”
During the same interview, Richards also discussed the then recently released follow-up to ‘Let It Bleed.’ Titled ‘Sticky Fingers,’ it’s the first Stones album to feature the now iconic ‘tongue and lips’ logo.

The generally-held view is that this is an artist’s representation of Jagger’s famously-structured mouth – nothing more, nothing less. However, Keith told ‘Rolling Stone,’ “that’s Kali, the Hindu female goddess. Five arms, a row of heads around her, a sabre in one hand, flames coming out the other, she stands there, with her tongue out.” Rachel Fell McDermott, professor and Chair of the Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures Department at Barnard College, Columbia University points out in her 2001 book, ‘Singing to the Goddess: Poems to Kali and Uma from Bengal: Poems to Kali’ that “Kali or Kalika as a name derives from ‘kala,’ which means ‘black,’ ‘time,’ and ‘death’; as such, she is the Mistress of Time or Death, the one who devours.” In ’Encountering Kali: In the Margins, At the Centre, In the West,’ published in 2003, Rachel and fellow professor, Jeffrey J. Kripal a former Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at Rice University, Texas, state that Kali “is a deity with a long, multi-layered history. Although worshipped throughout South Asia, she has traditionally been most popular in geographically peripheral areas of the sub-continent, such as Bengal, Assam, and Nepal in the northeast, Kashmir, Panjab, and Himachal Pradesh in the northwest, and Kerala, Tamilnadu, and Sri Lanka in the south. While individual myths, rituals, and iconographic traditions may differ somewhat in each of these areas, Kali is commonly perceived as a goddess who encompasses and transcends the opportunities of life. She is, for example, simultaneously understood as a bloodthirsty demon-slayer, and inflictor and curer of diseases, a deity of ritual possession, and an all-loving, compassionate Mother. That Kali often delights in shocking her viewers into new modes of awareness and emotional intensity is obvious to anyone who has witnessed her Bengali iconographic representations, which often present her wearing foetuses for earrings, decapitating men, sticking out her tongue for all to see, wearing a garland of chopped-off heads and a mini-skirt of human arms, and living in cremation grounds.”

Kali.

McDermott and Kripal continue, “to make matters ever more complex, despite all of this, her devotees still insist upon affectionately addressing her as ‘Ma,’ or ‘Mother.’As far as can be reconstructed from literary and iconographic sources, Kali’s present complexity of character developed slowly during the course of at least two thousand years. Interpretations of Kali have evolved significantly over time.”

More recently, an interpretation of the goddess has been identified in the behaviour of ‘Illuminati’ Popstress, Miley Cyrus. Much, if not all the credit for this observation must go to well known researcher, broadcaster and lecturer of matters linked to the conspiratorial and occult, Freeman, who, after having watching the singer’s controversial twerking performance on MTV’s Video Music Awards last year in which she walked out of a giant teddy(-paedo) bear whilst sticking out her tongue repeatedly, was left in little doubt that she was invoking Kali.

Miley performing at 2013’s MTV Video Music Awards.

Freeman says, “when I saw Miley Cyrus coming down out of that teddy-bear on the VMAs on MTV’s music-awards, it was clear to me what the amount of tongue-gesturing that she was doing, that she was to invoke Kali… When I saw her coming out of that teddy-bear, and I saw her stroking invisible hair, that was when I realised she was invoking Kali, because Kali is depicted with this long hair and has skulls and peoples’ heads around her neck. And really Kali is a symbol of the End of Time, or the Time of Death. And so, basically, this high-profile gesture of ‘the elite’ to put Miley on stage as Kali is a death knell. It’s a symbol of the end of time.”

CYRUS / KALI / STONES(?)… Miley’s tongue-pose has become something of a signature look for her in recent times. In the bottom-right photo however, she appears to be adopting The Stones’ trademark.

The Rolling Stones’ logo is said to have been designed by John Pasche an artist who’s credited with creating artwork for a number of music-acts including David Bowie, The Who, and Sinead O‘Connor. He recalls, “in 1969, Mick Jagger’s office rang the Royal College of Art in London and asked if there was a suitable design student to come up with designs for their 1970 European Tour poster. I was recommended and on 29th April 1970, Jo Bergman, who was running the Stones’ office at the time, wrote to me to confirm that they had commissioned me to design a poster for their forthcoming tour. At this time, I was in my final year of a graduate design course. I was very honoured when Mick Jagger turned up at the college to see my final degree show as the artwork that would ultimately be used for the poster was on display in one of the exhibits. A short time later, I met with Mick again, who then asked me to design a logo or symbol for the Rolling Stones’ new record-label.” In a 2014 video-interview hosted by none other than current Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood (more about him in Part Three) and available on the musician’s ‘YouTube‘ page, Pasche claims that Jagger, during their meeting to discuss the new logo, “fished out a picture of Kali the Indian goddess and said, ‘I really like this, what do you think?’ Immediately when I saw it my eyes went straight to the tongue, the pointed tongue sticking out of the mouth. Although I didn’t think that the Indian whole theme was necessarily the right thing because I thought it was something that’d be transient and maybe go out of date, there was something about the mouth… I suppose the inspiration really for it was to create something that was anti-authority really, I mean, The Stones were the sort of bad boys of Rock ‘n’ Roll, and somebody sticking their tongue out seemed to be the right gesture. And that was the initial concept.”
It should be pointed out at this juncture that an artist by the name of Ernie Cefalu has declared that the ‘tongue and lips’ idea actually originates from him. In a career spanning five decades, he’s credited with the creation of album-covers for the likes of Black Sabbath, Jefferson Airplane, Aerosmith, The Bee Gees, and Earth, Wind & Fire (to name just a few). Back in February 1971, just two months before the release of ‘Sticky Fingers,’ he claims he turned up for a job interview at the New York office of art-director, Craig Braun bringing along with him a selection of designs he’d been responsible for, including an album titled ‘Dolls Alive’ which featured a pair of lips, but without a tongue showing. Cefalu remembers that, “I couldn’t help notice Craig holding the ‘Dolls Alive’ album between the palms of his hands while he gazed at it as if deep in thought. After staring at it for at least a full minute, he said, ‘we’ve been working on developing a logo for the Rolling Stones, and haven’t hit on it yet… until now!’ He looked at me and asked, ‘can you take the lips that you did on this, add a tongue outside and over the bottom lip and finish it in less than an hour?’ I said that I could.” And he did, so he claims. That very same day, Braun met with Marshall Chess the-then President of the Stones’ new record-label to show him the logo, which he liked and gave the go-ahead to. Cefalu recalls, “as it turned out, Craig had given the logo I did to Marshall and The Stones for free. In return, he got the exclusive merchandising rights of the logo for one year… The next two weeks were like a blur to me. By the middle of February, I had created the finished line-art for the stamp-style lettering and the tongue logo for the Rolling Stones ‘Sticky Fingers’ album-cover and had made a big head start on all initial looks for the merchandising pieces. Over the next few months, I did a couple of other small jobs, but 98% of my focus was on Rolling Stone merchandising: shirts, sweat-shirts, scarves, hats, foil dye cut posters, belt-buckles, embroidered patches, key-chains, roach-clips and lots of other stuff… For the record, I really didn’t know that there was going to be a ‘lips and tongue’ logo on the final album-sleeve… As for why they had a second version done for the final album-art, it is a mystery to me. The logo that I did the finish on and that was used on all the merchandising was done by me well before the end of February of 1971. The logo that John Pasche did that was used on the ‘Sticky Fingers’ album sleeve and back-cover – when you look at the two logos side by side, you will clearly see that they are really different”…

Cefalu’s design on the right-hand side.

As far as Marshall Chess is concerned, in a 2010 interview he said, “I hired many different artists to draw many different versions” of the logo. “We had tongues waving, tongues sticking up, different shaped lips, and a tongue with a pill on it. And then I remember buying it. We bought it out right from John Pasche.” The front-sleeve of the album, which shows a close-up of a jeans-clad male crotch with a visible outline of a penis, was – according to the liner-notes from the CD version of the record – conceived by Andy Warhol. The design-work and graphics are credited to ‘Craigbrauninc.’ An interesting side-note here; Cefalu states that he was the man responsible for the idea of including a real working zipper on the cover of the original vinyl releases that, when opened, revealed underpants.

An original vinyl-copy album-cover of ‘Sticky Fingers’ complete with movable zipper. (CLICK TO ENLARGE – If you’ll pardon the pun!).

However, Cefalu’s reportedly said that a number of other options were considered, including a particularly morbid one inspired by the death of Brian Jones. “We did about three or four zipper ideas and maybe six other album-cover concepts,” he’s quoted as saying. “Another idea was to take a photo from the perspective of the bottom of a swimming pool; looking up and through the water you’d see the Stones’ faces standing around the pool. The idea was to come up with something shocking, to push the envelope. But that was too sick even for The Stones.” He claims another idea that was eventually binned was a design that featured a decapitated Mick Jagger. In comparison with these gory and grim rejected concepts, the finally-approved cover featuring a close-up of a covered yet suggestive crotch seems tame although in Spain the jeans and zipper sleeve was reportedly banned and replaced with a photo of a hand poking out of a tin of treacle. However, one could perhaps argue that the Spanish option (said to have been designed by The Stones) is more unsettling…

Is that treacle, or is it actually – subliminally – meant to be a can of blood, do you think?…

As for who was responsible for coming up with the original idea for the Rolling Stones’ logo, that’s an avenue you can explore further in the two video-links below. One is an interview with John Pasche, the other with Ernie Cefalu. Both men recount their stories and both back up their claims with objects of evidence such as letters, sketches and art-work.

Irrespective of which artist was responsible for what (Pasche? Cefalu?), there’s at least one Rolling Stone (Keith Richards) who’s publicly stated that the tongue and lips emblem is invocative of Kali. This in turn would perhaps support claims that other members of the band (namely, Mick Jagger) have thought similarly? Now, if you’re looking for some form of symbolism that connects the Rock-group to this Hindu deity, then how about checking out what Professor David R. Kingsley states in his 1997 book, ‘Tantric Visions of the Divine Feminine: The Ten Mahavidyas’ with regards to the ancient goddess, and most particularly with what he claims she represents. You’ll perhaps notice that it’s almost a word-for-word description of the Rolling Stones and how they lived their days during those younger, wilder years of the 1960s and early ‘70s, as well as what they epitomised and how they were perceived by those looking from the outside in whether rightly or wrongly. The similarities are, quite frankly, eye-widening. He writes, “Kali denotes freedom, particularly freedom from societal norms. She dwells outside the confines of normal society. Her loose hair and nudity suggest that she is an outsider, beyond convention. She is worshipped by criminals and outcastes. She is unrefined, raw in appearance and habit. And she is powerful, full of energy, perhaps because of being an outsider, a breaker of boundaries and social models.”
‘Sticky Fingers’ was released in April ‘71. The follow-up, ‘Exile on Main St.,’ was unleashed almost twelve months later in May ‘72. A double-album, it was the last in the stream of classics encompassed within The Stones’ so-called ‘golden age’ period.

‘Exile on Main St.’

There have been flashes of musical brilliance from them since, but, on the whole, the band has never come close to recreating an uninterrupted run of artistic and critical triumphs as achieved between 1968 and 1972. Indeed, in the years that have followed, it could be argued that their subsequent recorded works have attracted less and less attention when compared to the coverage given to their mammoth live concert tours which they continue to stage in stadiums all across the globe, and with a set-list largely comprised of songs that hark back to their 1960s and early ‘70s hey-day when they were positioned at the centre of a cultural and societal revolution that we‘re still feeling the impact of five decades on. As a matter of fact, the third and final instalment of this retrospective will not only focus on episodes and incidents that occurred during the band’s post-’Exile’ years leading us right into the present, but will also dip back and revisit the sixties once again to re-investigate the era when Rock acts were hailed as spokespeople and/or leaders of their generation. After all, if we’re to believe the claims of countless researchers who argue that the counter-culture of that time was nothing more than a plot to destabilise and degenerate, then what role if any did the Rolling Stones play in this deception? ‘Conspiro Media’ will document some of the intriguing information on offer that might help shed some light on this question, information that’ll require us to take a trip back to Altamont, and also to the events surrounding the death of Brian Jones which, contrary to the official verdict, looks by no means to have been caused by “misadventure.” Explore these two tragedies in close-depth and you can find links that lead in some way shape or form to the CIA, FBI, the UK’s Royal Family, Freemasonry, paedophilia, and possible MK ULTRA. Part Three of this retrospective will report on the nature of these shady connections and will also trace the backgrounds of yet more of the Rolling Stones’ inner-circle of friends and acquaintances, a significant number of whom connect (allegedly or not) either to British/US Intelligence, the KGB, the military, and/or the aristocracy. Furthermore, add to this forthcoming article one or two gangsters, some allegations of witchcraft, more clues of ’Satanic’ symbolism, yet another violent death, 9/11(?!), and an analysis of the more questionable aspects of Mick Jagger’s life and political views, and it should (hopefully) make for interesting and enlightening reading.

The grand finale of the sprawling, ambitious ten-hour mini-series, ‘The Bible’ is set to be screened in the US this Easter weekend on the ‘History Channel.’ The TV epic has covered key points from both the New and Old Testaments, including the Great Flood, the formation of the Ten Commandments, the battle between David and Goliath, and of course, the life and times of Jesus Christ. Before the first instalment aired, one half of the husband and wife production team responsible for it‘s creation said “weird things” happened on the set during filming. Mark Burnett, a self-proclaimed devout Christian, stated that, “the hand of God was on this….” He talked about:

A mighty desert wind“There’s a scene with Jesus and Nicodemus, when Nicodemus comes to Jesus in the night. It’s a very still night, not a breath of wind, and we’re on the edge of the Sahara desert in a palm grove in an oasis… Jesus says, ‘The Holy Spirit is like the wind.’ At that moment, a wind, like as if a 747 was taking off, blew his hair, almost blew the set over and sustained for 20 seconds across the desert, and the actors didn’t break — they kept going. And everything stopped. Everyone just looked at everyone like, ‘What just happened?’”

The missing frock“We had hundreds of craftsmen working (on making costumes), and the most important costume was Jesus’ costume. Every time, at the end of the day, the costume’s got to be taken away to be maintained. So when we were doing the baptism scenes, it’s completely immersed in water. During it, a portion of the costume came away. We shot this in a giant reservoir on the edge of the Sahara desert, so we’re never going to find this again. It’s really bad. Every time you lose something, you’ve got five months ahead, and you can’t replicate these costumes. Four days later, a kid showed up from many, many, many miles away, who had been seeking us through the desert to return this to us. He didn’t know what it was why he should seek us, but he felt he had to return it.”

Cobras at the cross“We had a snake wrangler every day on the set. I mean, we’ve got a couple hundred people shooting, and we can’t afford to have people getting bitten by snakes. Every day, this guy would find a snake or maybe two snakes, and remove them. On the day of the crucifixion, a lot of people prayed. The cross was a huge thing. They prayed (for safety), ‘Imagine if this cross fell. The actor playing Jesus could be killed or badly injured.’ The snake man came to work that day – he’d gotten there early on the mountain playing Golgotha, and the bag of snakes (he was carrying) was the biggest bag I’d ever seen. He came to my wife and said, ‘Miss Roma, there were 48 snakes.’ He found 48 cobras and vipers hidden within the rocks around the cross.”

All of this reminds ‘Conspiro Media’ of a TV documentary that aired on the UK’s ‘Channel 4’ back in 2005 about strange goings-on of a less ‘miraculous’ but more ‘demonic’ nature which were said to have occurred during the filming of a big-screen adaptation of another Biblical figure.

1976 Horror movie, ‘The Omen’ tells the story of Robert Thorn (played by Gregory Peck) a US Ambassador to Great Britain who begins to realise that his adopted infant son, Damien, is the Antichrist after investigating the circumstances behind the gruesome deaths of a priest and a nanny.
The Channel 4 documentary, ’The Curse of The Omen’ catalogued a series of real-life horrific deaths and near-fatal incidents that took place during the making of the film as well as directly before and after it, but because it’s never been re-screened since it‘s first airing eight years ago and isn‘t even widely available online, ‘Conspiro Media’ has had to resort to memory and a number of websites and old internet forum postings in order to catalogue some of these events here.
Based on an analysis of others’ recollections and a brief (if somewhat crudely edited) 12-minute-plus excerpt of the documentary on ’You Tube’ (and available for viewing in the ‘Reference Links’ section below), this is what was gathered:

A Push Too Far?A year after filming ended, Alf Joint, an experienced stunt-man who’d doubled-up as Robert Thorn’s wife, Katherine (played by Lee Remick), was almost killed during the making of the war-movie, ‘A Bridge Too Far’ after he jumped off the roof of a building and missed the large inflatable safety-bags that were positioned to cushion his fall. He’d performed a similar feat for ‘The Omen’ for the scene when Remick’s character is seen plummeting from a hospital bedroom window to her death. Strangest of all, according to the Channel 4 documentary, is the suggestion that some unknown ’force’ had brought about his disastrous descent on the set of the WWII film. An associate of Joint’s who was present when the incident occurred says, “right in the middle of the take when we were doing it, he sort of fell off rather strangely and awkwardly. He said, he felt as though he was pushed. But there was nobody near him at the time, he was completely up there on his own.”

Like nanny, like sonThe brief ‘You Tube’ excerpt of the Channel 4 documentary also makes note of “the violent suicide scene” that “echoed the tragic death of Gregory Peck’s son.” One can only assume (based on the limited info available) that this is a reference to the moment in the movie when young Damien Thorn’s nanny hangs herself by jumping off a window-ledge.Peck’s son, Jonathan, did indeed suffer a similar fate (of sorts). In June 1975, just two months before filming of ‘The Omen’ began, the television news-reporter killed himself with a bullett to the head.

Death at the zooThe short ‘You Tube’ clip skims over the story of an animal-handler who was apparently pulled into a lions’ enclosure at a zoo and eaten alive shortly after advising the cast and crew how to go about filming the scene in the movie where Damien is attacked by baboons whilst being driven through a safari park.

DecapitationPerhaps the most compelling information in the ‘You Tube’ clip centres around John Richardson, the man who designed the special effects for the goriest scene in the entire movie. For further details, ‘Conspiro Media’ had to look to an old news-item said to have been taken from the website, ‘The Daily Herald’ which claims he was involved in a real-life blood-curdling event that was chillingly familiar to the segment in the film he helped create where the character of photographer, Keith Jennings has his head decapitated by a sheet of glass. On August 13th 1976 (which just so happened to fall on a Friday), the respected visual-effects man and his assistant, Liz Moore, were involved in a car crash in Holland. She was cut in half when the vehicle’s front wheel sliced through the chassis and into the passenger seat. The fatal tragedy was underlined, according to the ‘Daily Herald’ article, by a road-sign that Richardson noticed after regaining consciousness moments after the smash that marked “the distance to an otherwise insignificant Dutch town. It read: Ommen, 66.6 km.”

Some of the above incidents were retold in a six-minute featurette enclosed within the collectors’ edition of the DVD release of ’The Omen’ titled ’Curse or Coincidence.’ Key crew members involved in the movie, including director, Richard Donner, contributed to it and appeared to offer slightly differing accounts to what was apparently broadcast in the Channel 4 documentary. They also pointed to a number of other unsettling events that occurred during shooting. The executive producer, Mace Neufeld for example recalls the night he narrowly missed being killed by the IRA after a restaurant he’d made a reservation for was bombed as he was making his way there. Donner, meanwhile, claims that the movie’s writer, David Seltzer and Gregory Peck boarded planes within three days of each other that were both hit by lightning. He also talks about an aircraft that the makers of the film borrowed which crashed into a car killing all of the occupants inside including, as it turns out, the pilot‘s wife and their two children.

In the featurette, Donner rejects the idea of a curse, branding the terrifying sequence of events connected to ’The Omen’ as nothing more than coincidence. He also admits capitalising on the tragedies in order to achieve maximum media exposure for the movie at the time of it’s 1976 release. Suspicions that ‘The Bible’ producer, Mark Burnett is also engineering a similar publicity drive are rife, as are questions surrounding the validity of his “hand of God” claims. Incidentally, he and his wife, Roma Downey, have gone on the record to openly deny accusations that the actor chosen to take on the role of Satan in their mini-series was picked for his uncanny resemblance to Barack Obama. In a joint statement they declared, “this is utter nonsense… The actor who played Satan, Mehdi Ouzaani, is a highly acclaimed Moroccan actor. He has previously played parts in several Biblical epics – including Satanic characters long before Barack Obama was elected as our President.” Downey added, “both Mark and I have nothing but respect and love our President, who is a fellow Christian. False statements such as these are just designed as a foolish distraction to try and discredit the beauty of the story of ‘The Bible.’”

Actor, Mehdi Ouzaani as Satan.

The tragedies that overshadowed the making of ‘The Omen,’ and which were highlighted in the Channel 4 documentary, certainly deserve further inspection for any details that might shed more light on the claims of a ‘curse,’ which is why it’s a pity this small-screen gem has never been aired since it’s original broadcast.
If you recall this TV programme, then please do feel free to share your memories of it in our ‘Reply‘ section below. Perhaps you own a recording of it (on video-cassette maybe – remember those)? Do get in touch if you do. ’Conspiro Media’ would greatly appreciate your input.

** ATTENTION… This article has since been revised and updated. Find out more here:

London’s legendary Marquee Club played a pivotal role in the birth of some of the biggest acts in Rock history. Pink Floyd, Genesis, and Rod Stewart performed there when they were still largely unknown, as did the young singer and saxophonist, David Jones with his band, The Lower Third, and occasionally, with other groups such as The High Numbers, who later found fame as The Who. Jones released a string of singles all of which flopped, and he didn’t enjoy his first significant international hit until 1969 with ‘Space Oddity,’ by which time he was known to all as David Bowie. The debut album by UK-based Rhythm & Blues band, The Yardbirds was recorded at the club during a live appearance in February 1964, just months after they’d recruited a talented yet largely unknown guitarist by the name of Eric Clapton. When he left the group in 1965, he was replaced with Jeff Beck and later, the much sought after session musician, Jimmy Page who, following the departure of the founding members, repackaged the band and staged their debut gig at the venue as The New Yardbirds with a line-up consisting of Page, vocalist Robert Plant, drummer John Bonham, and bassist and keyboardist John Paul Jones. Weeks later, they were renamed, Led Zeppelin. Perhaps most significantly of all, it was the club where a newly formed Blues and Rock & Roll covers band first performed as The Rolling Stones on July 12th 1962. It’s widely documented that the group’s name was born in a rush of desperation. In his 2010 biography, ‘Life,’ Keith Richards recalls the moment founder-member Brian Jones phoned a publication known as ‘Jazz News’ which, “was a kind of ‘who’s playing where’ rag, and said, ‘we’ve got a gig at…’ ‘What do you call yourselves?’ We stared at one another. ‘It?’ Then ‘Thing?’ This call is costing. Muddy Waters to the rescue! First track on ’The Best of Muddy Waters’ is ’Rollin’ Stone.’ The cover is on the floor. ’The Rolling Stones.’ Phew!! That saved sixpence.” Looking back on their landmark appearance at the Marquee, Mick Jagger said last year, “it is quite amazing when you think about it. But it was so long ago. Some of us are still here, but it’s a very different group than the one that played 50 years ago.” Indeed it is. When Jagger, Jones and Richards first performed at the legendary venue, they were joined by Dick Taylor on bass, Ian Stewart on piano, and, depending on who you ask, either Mick Avory or Tony Chapman on drums. Avory himself claims he never gigged with them although in his memoirs, Richards insists otherwise. What is clear is, in early 1963, Charlie Watts took over as drummer and Bill Wyman assumed Taylor‘s place as bass player… and this is the very reason why ‘Conspiro Media’ is publishing it’s three-part Rolling Stones 50th anniversary retrospective in 2013 instead of 2012. As Keith pointed out in a magazine interview not too long ago, “The Stones always really consider ’63 to be 50 years, because Charlie didn’t actually join until January. So we look upon 2012 as sort of the year of conception. But the birth is (the) next year.” 1963 was also the year when former Beatles publicist Andrew Loog Oldham became their manager and removed Ian Stewart from the line-up because his square-jawed features, and old-fashioned dress-sense and haircut didn’t fit in with the youthful image of the rest of the band. He then marketed them as the anti-thesis of The Beatles; the scruffy, long-haired, loutish, trouble-making equivalent of the cleaner-cut, be-suited ‘Fab Four.’ As their fame grew, he encouraged the British Press to run with headlines that would enforce this message, typified most memorably by the quote, “would you let your daughter marry a Rolling Stone?” It hardly mattered what disapproving parents thought of that loaded question, because it didn’t stop thousands of teenage girls packing out concert halls to see them. They weren’t the only band to play in front of screaming, weeping adolescent females during the early part of the 1960s of course, but what they attracted more than any other group of the time was an uncontrollable vibe from the audience that sometimes ended in destruction, after all, it wasn’t unusual to see a riot break out from time to time. This is what reportedly occurred in 1967 during a performance in Austria when a smoke bomb was thrown on stage -154 fans were arrested. In London, Ontario in 1965, the band literally had the plug pulled on them a few minutes into their set by police. It’s said this sparked a fierce backlash from angry fans. A day earlier, The Stones cut their appearance short of their own volition after the crowd lost control during a show in Toronto.

RIOT & THE AFTERMATH, APRIL 1967, ZURICH, SWITZERLAND: More than 12,000 fans reportedly ripped up seats and clashed with police at this Stones concert.

In the video below, Bill Wyman looks back at some old footage taken of the group performing at the Kurhaus concert hall in the Netherlands in 1964 (not “1965” as stated) and which shows audience-members and heavy-handed police clashing violently on stage whilst the band play on close by. As he views the scenes, Wyman recalls that the unruly hordes had “ruined the theatre. The chairs and the chandeliers – they tore the tapestry off the walls. They got us out after about two songs.”

In his book ‘Life,’ Keith Richards remembers one notable riot in the UK seaside town of Blackpool. He writes, “we start the gig, and it’s jam-packed, a lot of guys, a lot of them very, very p****d, all dressed up in their Sunday best. And suddenly while I’m playing, this little red-headed f****r flobs on me. So I move aside, and he follows me and flobs on me again and hits me in the face. So I stand in front of him again and he spits at me again and, with the stage, his head was just about near my shoe, like a penalty shot in football. I just went bang and knocked his f*****g head off, with the grace of Beckham. He’s never walked the same since. And after that, the riot broke out. They smashed everything, including the piano. We didn’t see a piece of equipment that came back any bigger than three inches square with wires hanging out. We got out of there by the skin of our teeth.” As a result, Blackpool’s councillors barred The Stones, finally lifting the ban in 2008. Reflecting on the unruly audiences during those heady times, Keith states, “what they were reacting to was being in this enclosed place with us – this illusion, me, Mick and Brian. The music might be the trigger, but the bullet, nobody knows what that is.” Richards continues, “usually it was harmless, for them, though not always for us. Amongst the many thousands a few did get hurt, and a few died. Some chick third balcony up flung herself off and severely hurt the person she landed on underneath, and she herself broke her neck and died. Now and again s**t happened.” The fact is, death played heavily in the Rolling Stones’ story, and in amongst the usual Rock & Roll pastimes of sex and drugs, there was also a sinister but very real undertone of black magic and Satanism. German singer, Nico, met the band in 1965. Of Brian Jones, she reportedly told a writer, “do you know Brian was a witch? We were interested in these things and he was very deep about it.“ According to the book, ‘Nico, the Life and Lies of an Icon’ by Richard Witts, “she said on another occasion that Jones was keen on the occult but ‘he was like a little boy with a magic set. It was really an excuse for him to be nasty and sexy. He read books by an old English man (Aleister Crowley) who was the Devil. I told Brian that I knew the Devil and the Devil was German!’“ Witts continues, “it was not hard to get engrossed, and like many bored boys of his generation, Brian Jones was fascinated. He read what he could and learned to love the occult’s deviant spirit. Nico, of course was intrigued by the inverse uses of the Christian symbols. There was a visceral thrill to be had from touching on taboos; in such matters Jones and Nico were of like mind and easily led.” Nico was briefly a vocalist with The Velvet Underground, the influential 1960s musical outfit with an illustrious line-up that included John Cale, and also, Lou Reed who wrote one of the band’s best known songs, ‘Venus in Furs,’ which was based on and titled after a novella by 19th century author, Leopold Ritter von Sacher-Masoch. Perhaps his most famous literary work, it depicts people deriving sexual pleasure from pain and humiliation. Not long after it’s publication, the writer‘s name gave rise to the term, ‘Masochism’ in order to describe this form of behaviour that Masoch himself practised in. He’s purported to have lived out passages from the book in real-time and even signed a contract with one of his mistresses which made her a sex slave for a period of six months during which time she was required to wear furs and succumb to his desires. Another of his women whipped him and beat him with her fists at his behest, and he also urged his first wife to regularly thrash him with a cat-o’-nine-tails. Born in 1836, Leopold was a Freemason with an illustrious background. His grandfather, Johann Nepomuk Stephan Ritter von Sacher was appointed to the Austrian Order of Leopold, and elevated to the nobility in April 1818. His mother, Charlotte von Masoch was a Ukrainian noblewoman and when she married into the Sacher family in 1829, the name Masoch was added at the behest of her father as she was the last remaining member of the lineage following her brother’s death. If you’re reading this and wondering what relevance any of this has to The Rolling Stones, then it might interest you to learn that Leopold’s grand-niece, Eva von Sacher-Masoch, Baroness Erisso, was the mother of Marianne Faithfull, someone whose life will be forever linked to the band’s history. She was a 17-year-old convent school girl when she first met the group in 1964 at a party held by Andrew Loog Oldham who not long after, launched her on a successful music career with the Jagger/Richards hit, ‘As Tears Go By.’ At the time, she was involved in a long-term relationship with John Dunbar, who founded the influential Indica Gallery and bookstore in 1965 with author, Barry Miles. It championed the counter-culture art scene that was growing at the time and it became a popular haunt of London’s ‘Swinging Sixties’ set. Paul McCartney and John Lennon were notable devotees, in fact, the classic Beatles track ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ was inspired by a book that Lennon had read there by Timothy Leary titled, ‘The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead.’ Brian Jones was also reportedly a customer, as was his girlfriend of the time, Anita Pallenberg, an Italian-born model who he first became acquainted with at a Stones gig in 1965. In the book, ‘Led Zeppelin – When Giants Walked the Earth,’ author, Mick Wall writes about a mutual friend of Jones and Pallenberg’s by the name of “Winona,“ who claims the couple spent time at the Indica bookstore, “buying the latest occult tomes, searching for ‘Satanic spells to dispel thunder and lightning.’” Wall states that well renowned Aleister Crowley devotee, Jimmy Page was a regular visitor to Brian’s and Anita’s London flat when he was a member of The Yardbirds and that the Rolling Stone “was into paganism, Zen, Moroccan tapestries… and drugs. Anita was an aspiring film-star and model, into magick, sex, hanging out with Rock stars… and drugs. A small-time crook as a teenager, not only was Brian a gifted and successful musician, he was up for anything. He and Anita would hold séances at the flat using a ouija board; or they would pile in the car and drive off to look for UFOs in the dead of night.” Despite starring in a number of movies, including the sixties sci-fi classic, ‘Barberalla’ as The Great Tyrant, Pallenberg will perhaps always be best remembered for her long-running high-profile role in the story of The Stones.

Marianne Faithfull and Anita Pallenberg.

Marianne Faithfull has reportedly said Anita, “was sort of a dark queen, beautiful and wicked despite her blonde looks. Her smile was not like one you had ever seen before, it seemed to be a camouflage for some great, dark secret she was hoarding. The best way I can describe her is that she was like a snake to a bird and she could transfix you and hold you in place until she wanted to make her move.” Marianne and John Dunbar were married in 1965 but their union was short-lived. After brief sexual dalliances with Brian Jones and Keith Richards, the young beauty eventually left her husband and began a four-year relationship with Mick Jagger in 1966. She too was fascinated in the occult and was briefly involved with the ‘Process Church of the Final Judgement,’ a religious group founded in London in the early 1960s by former Scientologists, Mary and Robert DeGrimston. One of it’s earliest members was Timothy Wyllie who helped create the movement after joining in 1964 when he was a 23-year-old fresh out of architecture school. In a 2009 interview he said, “we did have a very complex belief system. It was rather informal, because as we became more spiritually orientated, we did get in touch with the inner aspects of ourselves, as well as what’s going on in the universe. We were basically in contact with something we call ‘The Beings.’ We didn’t know what they were, but they seemed to be guiding us, and we felt they were responsible for small miracles, like when a fish washed up and we hadn’t eaten for three days. That then developed into a much more formal theology which we incorporated into the Church, and what we had previously regarded as psychological archetypes got turned into a sort of theological framework.” It’s certain aspects within this “framework” that’s attracted a fair amount of suspicion from critics, because it brings together The Christ with Satan. In another interview, Wyllie described the logic behind this idea. He said, “we were working within a Western cosmology if you like, you know. If we had of been in Japan, we might’ve mapped it against a totally different kind of cosmology, but that’s the one we used. But it’s a little more complicated than the Christian thing because we had these three basic archetypes of Jehovah, Lucifer, and Satan and then we saw The Christ aspect as being the unifier, and then the more complicated and more fundamental scenario was, came from the concept of loving your enemy, and, as Robert would say, you know, ‘who was Christ’s enemy? Satan was Christ’s enemy.’ So, the idea was to – through love – uniting the opposites, uniting these different aspects. And of course it was an internal process, an alchemical process of uniting the two aspects of the self.” He has also stated that, “we were going back to the Christian evolution of our prime enemy, where Satan is the prime enemy, and you should love Satan. Not in a sense worshiping, but in a sense of understanding and comprehending. There is polarity in the universe. Everything has polarity, and to demonise the other the way the Christian church has demonised Satan. It’s madness, because by rejecting this aspect, we are harming ourselves because we don’t learn.”

Robert DeGrimston

Wyllie was also the art and design director for the Church’s ‘Process Magazine’ which, according to former Blondie bassist-turned-occult researcher and writer Gary Lachman, “favoured Hitler, Satan and gore.” It also featured interviews with famous celebrities of the time. In an article on the website, ‘Fortean Times,’ Lachman states that the magazine was “hawked on the streets of Swinging London, hitting the King’s Road, marching into places like the Indica Bookshop… In the ‘Fear’ issue, (Paul) McCartney revealed that he had no ‘fear of the world ending or anything like that,’ but did fear fear itself. An issue dedicated to ‘Freedom of Expression,’ had Mick Jagger on the cover.” Lachman also writes that Marianne Faithfull featured in the ‘Death’ issue. Wyllie talked of the Rolling Stone and his girlfriend in a 2009 interview. He said, “Mick and Marianne’s attraction was simply that we all liked one another, it was early in their careers so perhaps they were more accessible – no Press agents to fight through. At that point in the mid-’60s most of our generation thought and felt much same in terms of what was wrong with the world. We just gave them an opportunity to speak openly and honestly about how they felt. They were never part of the group.”

Mick Jagger on the cover of ‘Process Magazine.’

In his book, ‘Turn Off Your Mind: The Mystic Sixties and The Dark Side of the Age of Aquarius,’ Lachman quotes Faithfull as saying of The Process, “I was attracted to them at first, mostly because they took me seriously, when nobody else did. They were very admiring of me – they must have recognised that I have got magic powers. Mick told me I had made a mistake and before I went any further a warning bell went off and I backed away. John Michell, the Holy Grail, and flying saucers were okay, but there was something almost like Fascism about The Process.” Indeed, according to Lachman in his ‘Fortean Times’ article, by 1968, the DeGrimstons’ movement, “had spread to the States, establishing churches in New York, Boston, New Orleans, Los Angeles and San Francisco. They also canvassed Europe; in Germany they sent representatives to the neo-Nazi NPD (National Democratic Party). Always in search of intensity, Nazi chic attracted them.” He adds, “in Haight-Ashbury they visited the offices of the ‘San Francisco Oracle,’ hoping to bring the underground newspaper over to the cause. The Oracle was too busy hyping the coming Age of Aquarius to give Satan much time. They paid a visit to the Black Pope, Anton LaVey, head of the ‘Church of Satan,’ but he had no use for them either. They set up a church at 407 Cole Street. Their neighbour at 636 Cole was someone who would cause them a lot of grief in a year or so. His name was Charles Manson, soon to become the head of ‘The Family’ responsible for the gruesome Tate/LaBianca murders in August of 1969. At that time, Charlie was still an ex-con petty thief, strumming a guitar among the debris of the flower children, languishing amidst the ruins of the Summer of Love. By the end of the decade he was one of the most famous people alive, a cause célèbre in the counter-culture, Satan incarnate for The Establishment.“ A number of authors and researchers have claimed Manson was directly involved with The Church, an allegation denied by the DeGrimstons’ inner circle, although it is acknowledged that two Process members visited him in prison after the murders. During this time, he also contributed a piece for the ‘Death’ issue of The Church’s magazine. Timothy Wyllie has attempted to downplay the Family leader’s connection with the publication. In 2009 he said, “a couple of years after Manson had been in prison we were working on a magazine about death, and rather unwisely a couple of us (not me) went to visit and talk to Manson in jail – after all, we innocently reasoned, who’d know more about death? In retrospect, of course it was really stupid, but not out of line with the many stupid things we did. Being so inward looking, I think we were way out of touch with how regular people thought.” The alleged Process connection was examined by the prosecuting attorney in the Tate/LaBianca trial, Vincent Bugliosi. In his 1974 book, ’Helter Skelter,’ he documents his findings, concluding that the supposed links are “tenuous, yet… fascinating.” To illustrate his point, he highlights a number of philosophical ideas and pursuits Manson shared with the Church and the DeGrimstons, including a background in Scientology. He writes, “in July 1961 he was sent to the United States Penitentiary at McNeil Island, Washington. Manson gave as his claimed religion ‘Scientologist,’ stating that he ‘has never settled upon a religious formula for his beliefs and is presently seeking an answer to his question in the new mental health cult known as Scientology.’ Manson’s teacher, i.e., ‘auditor,’ was another convict, Lanier Rayner. Manson would later claim that while in prison he achieved Scientology’s highest level, ‘theta clear.’” Bugliosi also makes note of Manson’s presence in Haight-Ashbury during 1967, living as he did “just two blocks away” from The Process’s San Francisco headquarters and states that it was “very likely” he “at least investigated” the movement during this period claiming “there is fairly persuasive evidence that he ‘borrowed’ some of their teachings,” for example, The Church and the infamous cult leader, “both preached an imminent, violent Armageddon, in which all but the chosen few would be destroyed. Both found the basis for this in the Book of Revelation. Both conceived that the motorcycle gangs, such as Hell’s Angels, would be the troops of The Last Days. And both actively sought to solicit them to their side.” Bugliosi then compares The Process’s belief system that unifies Jehovah, Lucifer, and Satan through Christ, to Manson’s “simpler duality,” claiming that “he was known to his followers as both Satan and Christ.” Furthermore, “within the organisation, The Process was called (at least until 1969) ‘the family,’” adding that, “the symbol of The Process is similar, though not identical, to the swastika Manson carved on his forehead.” The renowned researcher and author, Michael Tsarion offers a contrary view to Bugliosi regarding the choice of tattoo, which he etched into his skin shortly after the Tate/LaBianca killings. At a lecture in Sweden during 2010, he told his audience, “actually, it’s not a swastika, because Charles Manson by his own definition has had nothing whatever to do with Hell’s Angels or hippies, and very adamantly will tell you that he is from an earlier generation and looks at those people as completely clueless… so then, what is the symbol? That is the symbol of The Process Church which was in fact a swastika slightly skewed to look like a Malta Cross, or a Malta Cross slightly skewed to look like a swastika – either way. And that swastika is not a Nazi symbol – and Manson knows it.”

Top left: Manson with his etched ‘swastika; Top right: The Process Church’s logo; Below: A Maltese Cross.

As any one reading this with even a basic understanding of occult symbology will be aware, the Malta Cross that Tsarion refers to is an emblem belonging to the Catholic Church’s Masonic Knights Templar Order and similar in design to the Nazi ‘Iron Cross’ military decoration. This is a fact not lost on researchers such as Jordan Maxwell who’s dedicated over 50 years in the study of secret societies and fraternal orders. He believes it’s no accident that Adolf Hitler championed a symbol that bore more than a slight resemblance to the Vatican’s Malta Cross, and is actually a mark of allegiance between the two powers.

SPOT THE DIFFERENCE: Top left: The Knights of Malta (Maltese) Cross; Top Right: A Freemason of the Knights Templar Order; Bottom left: A Nazi Iron Cross, 1935-1945; Bottom right: Pope Benedict XVI; Centre: A Nazi Cross to recognise the services of German volunteers in the Spanish Civil War.

In his documentary, ‘The Hidden Dimension in World Affairs,’ Maxwell talks of the ancient Roman image of the fasces, which depicts a bundle of wooden sticks with an axe-blade emerging from the centre, and that represents strength through unity. He says, “fasci have been used in political symbolism, and most of the world has no idea in the world what a fasces is. Now, the word ‘fas’… in a law dictionary, fas means, ‘that which is right or just in the sight of God, as distinguished from jus, which more frequently refers to that which is right in the aspect of man-made law’… jus, which gives us that word, justice.” He continues, “Fas; divine law or command – so when you’re talking about divine law and command, you’re talking about God. If you’re talking about God, you’re talking about the Papacy. The Pope, who can bring together many nations into a coalition of nations. So, Fasci-sm and world conflict is another facet of the story of the symbol of the fasci.”

Left: The fasces; Middle: A postage stamp of Mussolini and Hitler from 1941 complete with fasces; Right: Fasces on display either side of President Obama in the US House of Representatives.

Maxwell continues, “Mussolini had to go to Rome… to sign contracts to allow him to become a Fascist blood-letting dictator under the auspices of the Roman Catholic Church. So, Hitler and his Nazis had to do the same thing. So they had to go sign contracts with the old Mob boss in Rome.” Indeed, in July 1933, a treaty between the Holy See and Nazi Germany took effect, and is still in force today. Not surprisingly, the relationship was a controversial one, for example, at the end of the Second World War, the Vatican provided safe escape for Fascists on the run through the infamous ’ratlines,’ and the Catholic Church was also widely criticised for failing to speak out against Nazi atrocities during the war years. On learning that Pope Piux XII directed a Polish priest to keep silent about the murder of Jews, Albert Einstein was quoted as saying, “since when can one make a pact with Christ and Satan at the same time?” Well, the Process Church has apparently attempted it, irrespective of whether it’s possible to do so or not, and it also adopted symbols that hark back to Adolf Hitler and the Holy Roman Empire. Perhaps it too was yet another sinister subsidiary of the malevolent Catholic Church system that Jordan Maxwell speaks of? As he himself states, “the Vatican was always the presiding overseer over Fascism, Nazism, wars, bloodshed, drug-running, plundering, raping and killing throughout the whole world. So if you want to know what’s going on on the Earth, you better check with the Vatican, ‘cos that’s where it all goes back to – even Hitler and Mussolini had to first of all pay tribute to the Holy Father. The Grandmaster of ALL evil on the Earth.”
The swastika is another ancient symbol that has been adopted by numerous cultures and civilisations over the ages, most notably in religions of varying persuasions. Of course, in recent years, it’s image has been stigmatised in the mainstream western world by it’s connections to Nazism. Hardly a surprise then that Rolling Stone Brian Jones was embroiled in a critical backlash after taking part in a particular photo-session in 1966 in which he wore a swastika armband and a Maltese/Iron Cross around his neck. In the book, ’Paint It Black,’ author, Geoffrey Giuliano writes that the musician “posed in full Nazi regalia for the cover of the West German magazine, ‘Stern.’ There was Jones looking every bit the haughty, decadent SS officer, with a Chivalry Cross around his neck, squashing a doll beneath his polished boots while Anita knelt submissively at his feet. Although the shot was discarded, outtakes from the session were later published in Britain, erupting into a major scandal. Jones tried to allay criticism by insisting: ‘I wear a Nazi uniform to show I am anti-Nazi. The meaning of it all is there is no sense to it.’ As for Pallenberg, she explained years later: ‘It was naughty, but what the hell! He looked good in an SS uniform!’”

CONTROVERSIAL PHOTO-SHOOT: Brian in Nazi garb with Anita.

In light of all the information amassed during his enquiries, Vincent Bugliosi states, “there was at least some contact” between Charles Manson and The Church. During the Tate/LaBianca trial, the lawyer-now-turned-writer asked the Family leader if he knew Robert DeGrimston (real name, Robert Moore). “He denied knowing DeGrimston,” Bugliosi recalls, “but said he had met Moore. ‘You’re looking at him,’ Manson told me. ‘Moore and I are one and the same.’ I took this to mean that he felt they thought alike.” Perhaps. Although Michael Tsarion has stated that, “anyone who’s studied Mind-Control understands what the alter-ego is, and how this is used in Mind-Control – this form of identification.”

Investigate reporter, Maury Terry has also documented Manson’s links to The Church, but unlike Bugliosi, has argued that there is reason to believe his relationship with the organisation was very real and very deep and that it was connected to the slaying of Roman Polanski’s movie actress wife, Sharon Tate and her friends at the couple’s rented home in Cielo Drive, Los Angeles. His claims are to be found in ‘The Ultimate Evil,’ a book which examines the allegations of David Berkowitz AKA ‘The Son of Sam,’ who in 1977 was arrested and then later sentenced to life in prison following the murder of six people in a series of shootings that continued for over a year. At the time of his capture, he declared he was acting alone but has since amended his confession insisting that he was a member of a Satanic cult that orchestrated the incidents as a ritual slaughter. In conversations with Terry, he’s implicated The Process. He’s also said The Church was involved in the Tate/LaBianca deaths. The Manson connection has been brought to Maury’s attention by unnamed sources, including “a jailed Manson killer” who claims The Family met Process leaders at a house near Los Angeles in 1968. To corroborate this alleged meeting, ‘The Ultimate Evil’ makes reference to Manson’s autobiography in which “he wrote that he met individuals who worshiped ‘multiple devils’ at the very house in question.” Terry’s book also refers to another informant who alleges that “Manson joined the cult and later convened” with Process members at locations in California. Furthermore, and contrary to widespread mainstream consensus, Maury’s “reliable” source states that Manson personally knew one of the victims slain in the Tate house that night, namely, the heiress, Abigail Folger who was “friends for a time” with the Family leader in San Francisco. Additionally, Terry claims, “I viewed a letter Manson wrote in 1989. In his own hand, he described another occasion where he met named Process leaders. Incredibly, he said this gathering actually took place at the Tate home – the scene of future slaughter. Manson has also claimed a child pornography element bubbled somewhere in the Tate tableau. This factor was also present in the ‘Son of Sam’ operation, a phase Berkowitz addressed when I interviewed him again in 1997 for New York’s WABC-TV. ‘The Process was very sophisticated and dedicated,’ Berkowitz told me. ‘They had their hands in a lot of things, including drugs and that disgusting child pornography. They also provided kids for sex to some wealthy people, and I did see some of those people at parties.’” Michael Tsarion suggests Manson carried out the 1969 murders on behalf of The Process. He says, “all these families living on Cielo Drive were deeply involved – not only in drugs, but in child pornography – that’s the Tate family, the LaBianca family, and the Polanski family, and even Sharon Tate. They were all involved in paedophilia and child pornography. And The Process hit them for internal reasons. And also to send a message to the rest of Hollywood to fall into line, that when these guys ask you for a payment for their drug money, you’d better fall into line or this is an example of what’s gonna be happening to you.” Another key figure worthy of note is Bruce Davis, Manson’s so-called ‘right-hand man’ who Maury claims travelled to the UK “about nine months before the killings,” and, “according to LA homicide sources,” spent time with The Process whilst he was there. Bugliosi also writes of the high-ranking Family member’s visit to the United Kingdom during the same timeline as documented by Terry, but in relation to another Church. In ’Helter Skelter’ he states that Davis “was very closely involved with Scientology for a time, working in it’s London headquarters from about November or December of 1968 to April of 1969.” He continues, “according to a Scientology spokesman, Davis was kicked out of the organisation for his drug use. He returned to the Manson Family… in time to participate in the Hinman and Shea slayings.” These killings occurred during the period of the Tate/LaBianca murders and eventually led to Davis‘s imprisonment. Donald ‘Shorty’ Shea, was a movie stuntman who occasionally worked at Spahn Ranch, an old disused Hollywood film-set that had been turned into a horse-riding stables and where Manson and his loyal followers were living rent-free with the owner, George Spahn. It’s claimed that The Family sanctioned Shea’s murder, not only because they discovered he was plotting to have them ejected from the property over their unruly behaviour, but also partly due to their belief he’d reported them to the police, which then resulted in a raid on the ranch and them being held in custody on suspicion of car theft. The slaying of music teacher, Gary Hinman over an alleged drug-deal gone wrong was carried out on the orders of Manson by three Family members, one of whom was Bobby Beausoleil, a young musician and sometime actor who played guitar during the mid-’60s for Arthur Lee‘s Folk/Rock band, The Grass Roots, which later changed it‘s name to, ‘Love.’ Before meeting and befriending Manson, he’d been involved in a movie project directed and masterminded by occult avant-garde short-filmmaker, Kenneth Anger, but their relationship eventually soured, reportedly due to disputes over money. A life-long follower of Aleister Crowley, Anger was born Kenneth Anglemeyer in 1927 and began making films as a boy. The themes of homoeroticism, surrealism and magick in his movies were ideally suited to enthral young discerning audiences during the mid-to-late 1960s when the cultural landscape fell under the influence of the hippie and LSD scene and he was welcomed into the inner court of Rock Royalty where he forged friendships with a number of major music artists of the era, including Jimmy Page, and, The Rolling Stones.

Kenneth Anger pictured in 2010.

Anger is widely quoted as saying, “the occult unit within The Stones was Keith, Anita and Brian. I believe that Anita is, for want of a better word, a witch…” Indeed, Pallenberg has reportedly declared, “yes, I did have an interest in witchcraft, in Buddhism, in the black magicians that my friend, Kenneth Anger, the film-maker, introduced me to. The world of the occult fascinated me…” Of Jones, it’s claimed that Anger said, “you see, Brian was a witch too. I’m convinced. He showed me his Witch’s Tit. He had a supernumerary tit in a very sexy place on his inner thigh. He stated, ‘in another time they would have burned me.’ He was very happy about that.“ Of course, Jones wasn’t wrong to assume that his purported third nipple might’ve led to persecution in a long bygone age. At the height of the witch-hunts in Europe in the 17th century, it was said supernatural entities which appeared in animal form fed off these marks on the body. Known as ‘familiars,’ these spirits were supposedly assigned by the Devil to act as the servants of witches; to aid them in their magick and protect them from attack. Blood was their nourishment and their masters provided it for them, either by sacrificing animals, or directly from the much maligned lumps or blemishes on their skin dubbed, “witches’ teats.” Of all the members in the Rolling Stones, Anger reportedly said that “Brian was the most psychic… He saw the spirit world; for the others it was just the climate of the times. One gets the impression he just dissolved into it.” He was also dissolving into a sea of drugs and booze. A talented musical genius, he was the leading light of the group during their formative years and Jagger and Richards were once his lesser-experienced eager students. In a 2002 interview, Bill Wyman said Jones was “hugely important at the beginning because he formed the band. He chose the members. He named the band. He chose the music we played. He got us gigs… did marvellous things on a lot of songs in the mid-’60s with dulcimers, marimbas – anything he put his hands on he could get a tune out of and turned songs around into something they weren’t when they started. Very influential, very important…” By 1967 though, he was a shadow of his former self; a drug and alcohol addled side-man eclipsed by Mick and Keith who’d by this point, formed a strong and successful song-writing partnership. Wracked by insecurity and jealousy, and opposed to The Stones‘ musical direction which was veering away from their R&B and Blues roots towards a more psychedelic vibe in keeping with the soundscape of the times, he reportedly grew increasingly isolated from his band-mates. His personal life was equally fraught. In his memoirs, ‘Life,’ Keith Richards labels Jones “a woman beater,” but also claims that the tortured musician couldn’t match up to girlfriend, Anita. He writes, “I would hear the thumping some nights, and Brian would come out with a black eye… the one woman in the world you did not want to try and beat up on was Anita Pallenberg.” It would certainly seem that way if one incident in particular is to be believed. “Scraped and bloody” after yet another violent exchange with Jones, Pallenberg sought refuge at a friend’s house. “I was sitting there, in tears, angry, getting my wounds treated, feeling terrible,” she’s said to have recalled. “I decided to make a wax figure of Brian and poke him with a needle. I molded some candle wax into an effigy and said whatever words I said and closed my eyes and jabbed the needle into the wax figure. It pierced the stomach… Next morning when I went back to where I was living with Brian, I found him suffering from severe stomach pains. He’d been up all night, and he was in agony, bottles of Milk of Magnesia and other medications all around him. It took him a day or two to get over it.” Eventually, after one too many beatings and humiliating showdowns, Anita ended their stormy, violent two-year relationship during a continental jaunt across Europe and Africa in 1967 and ran into the arms of Keith Richards who was accompanying them on their excursion. He charts the events that led to the break-up in his memoirs recalling that Jones was struck down with pneumonia on the first-leg of their vacation in France and admitted to a hospital in Toulouse. Anita and Keith decided to travel on without him and arranged to meet their bed-bound travelling companion in Morocco at a later date. The two drove to Spain and then Tangier where they spent time with the American writer, William S. Burroughs, and the British-born artist, author and occultist, Brion Gysin before moving on to Marrakech where Jones eventually joined them. Pallenberg and Richards had embarked on an affair in his absence but quickly ended it when he reappeared on the scene hoping it would remain a secret. This did little to dampen his suspicions though and he faced up to Anita in their hotel room. Keith claims his band-mate reacted with “more violence… trying to take Anita on for fifteen rounds. And once again he breaks two ribs and a finger or something. Then Brian dragged two tattooed whores down the hotel corridor and into the room, trying to force Anita into a scene, humiliating her in front of them. He started to fling food at her from the many trays he’d ordered up. At that point Anita ran to my room. I said, ‘this is pointless. Let’s get the hell out of here. Let’s just leave him.’ Anita was in tears. She didn’t want to leave, but she realised that I was right when I said Brian would probably try and kill her.” Keith hastily hatched an escape plan that would ensure his and Anita’s speedy departure out of Morocco. To avoid attracting Brian’s attention during their breakout attempt, Richards enlisted Brion Gysin to act as an unwitting diversion, falsely informing him that the Press had located Jones’s whereabouts and were hunting him down. It was decided that Gysin take him on a sightseeing trip to evade this supposed media onslaught. In the meantime, Keith and Anita fled to Tangier and then London. It wasn’t until Brian returned to his hotel much later that he discovered what had occurred. The Stone was alone, and he was devastated.

Brion Gysin

For all the emotional turmoil that Jones is said to have experienced in Morocco during the period of his bust-up with Pallenberg, the country itself rarely disappointed him and he was greatly inspired by it‘s sights and sounds. In 1968, he visited the ancient mountain village of Joujouka to meet the native Sufi Master Musicians whose centuries-old form of trance music had captured his imagination. Largely unknown to the outside world, the Rolling Stone was made aware of their existence by Brion Gysin and Mohamed Hamri, a Moroccan artist and author who later encouraged the Irish-born singer Frank Rynne to embark on a similar pilgrimage during the 1990s. A former member of the 1980s / ‘90s bands, Those Handsome Devils, The Baby Snakes, and more recently, the Islamic Diggers, Rynne eventually recorded an album with the Master Musicians and has since become their manager, helping to promote them to a wider global audience. In a 2007 interview, he talked about the Persian Sufi scholar, Saint (Sidi) Ahmed Sheikh, who is widely believed to have blessed the music of Joujouka with spiritual powers upon first visiting the region over 1,000 years ago. He said, “Sidi Ahmed Sheikh… is credited with founding Joujouka. Having wandered from Persia in the 860s AD, he and his seven companions encountered a tribe of musicians in the Ahl Srif Djebel. Hearing them play the saint felt their music was useful. He wrote music for them with a spiritual intent; to calm and cure ailments of the mind and to promote peace and harmony. Sidi Ahmed drew a line in the sand in Joujouka: those who follow his path, remaining on his side of the line may reap bountiful rewards and fertility, those who are outside the line can find no happiness in Joujouka.”

JOUJOUKA MUSICIANS… Their music is played with a variety of traditional reed, pipe, and percussion instruments native to their region, including a goat-skin drum known as the ‘tebel,’ and a bamboo flute made in the village called, the ‘lira.’

When Brian Jones returned to London following his brief stay with the Master Musicians, he set about editing and remixing a batch of recordings he’d made of the Moroccan group on a portable tape-machine, the results of which were released as an album in 1971. It’s title, ‘Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka,’ is derived from a fertility rite the villagers carry out each year which centres on a half-man half-goat character named, Boujeloud who’s enticed by the dancing temptress, Aisha. He holds branches in his hand, and any female onlooker hit with them is destined to become fertile.

BOUJELOUD: The person taking on the role of Boujeloud wears a straw hat and is dressed in an outfit made of goat-skins.

In the sleeve-notes attached to Jones’s album, Brion Gysin equates the rite with the ancient God, Pan. He commented on this during an interview with the writer, Terry Wilson. He said, “I recognised very quickly that what they were performing was the Roman Lupercal, and the Roman Lupercalia was a race run from one part of Rome, a cave under the Capitoline Hill, which Mussolini claimed to have discovered, but is now generally conceded to be some 10 or 15 metres further down… and in this cave goats were killed and skinned and a young man of a certain tribe was sown up in them, and one of these young men was Mark Antony, and when in the beginning of Julius Caesar, when they meet, he was actually running this race of Lupercalia through Rome on the 15th March, the Ides of March… and the point was to go out to the gates of Rome and contact Pan, the God of the Forests, the little Goat God, who was Sexuality itself, and to run back through the streets with the news that Pan was still out there f*****g as he flailed the women in the crowds, which is why Julius Caesar asked him to be sure to hit Calpurnia, because his wife Calpurnia was barren.”

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The physical depiction of The Devil as a horned, goat-like figure is generally regarded to have been an invention of Christianity during the Middle Ages when it was targeting pagans who worshiped horned gods such as the Celtic deity, Cernunnos, and of course, Pan, who as a consequence, is often identified with Satan.

Pan.

When the Knights Templar were arrested, tortured and interrogated by King Philip IV of France in the 14th century at the time of the Roman Catholic Inquistion, some of them confessed that they had participated in the worship of a “heathen” idol, usually consisting of a severed head and known as, Baphomet. In the mid-1800s, the French occultist, magician, and freemason, Eliphas Levi drew a picture of an androgynous figure with a goat’s head dubbed, the ‘Baphomet of Mendes,’ a name which harks back to themes explored and recorded by Greek historian, Herodotus thousands of years earlier in ‘The History – Book II.’ He wrote of Djedet, an ancient Egyptian city known in Greek as, Mendes and in it’s native language as, Banebdjed in honour of the ram deity of the same name. Herodotus described how this Mendesian God was represented with the head, legs, and fleece of a goat. He also stated that “in Egyptian, the goat and Pan are both called Mendes.”

Eliphas Levi’s notorious, Baphomet.

Levi’s illustration, which combined elements from The Devil in Tarot cards, lives on, most notably through organisations such as ‘The Church of Satan’ which has adopted and adapted the iconic image as it’s official logo. The so-called ‘Great Beast,’ Aleister Crowley, was also inspired by Baphomet, as he was by Pan whom he referred to in his written works. According to his friend, the writer, Dennis Wheatley, Crowley attempted to invoke the ancient fertility god in a hotel room in Paris in the days before the First World War. He writes, “one of his disciples owned a small hotel on the Left Bank. Crowley greatly wished to raise Pan; so the hotel proprietor got rid of his staff for the weekend and Crowley’s coven of disciples assembled there. The furniture from a room under the roof was removed and it was swept clean. In the evening Crowley, in his magician’s robes, went into it accompanied by MacAleister (son of Aleister), one of his disciples. He then told the other eleven members of the coven that whatever noises they might hear in no circumstances were they to enter the room before morning. The eleven went downstairs to a cold buffet, very nervous. A little after midnight they heard an appalling racket in the upper room, but obeyed the Master’s orders and did not go up. When in the morning they did go up, they knocked on the door but there was no reply, so they broke it in. Both MacAleister and Crowley had had their robes ripped from them and were naked. MacAleister was dead and Crowley a gibbering idiot crouching in a corner. Perhaps Crowley did succeed in raising Pan and the horned god strongly objected to being taken away from whatever he was doing. Anyhow, Crowley spent four months in a loony-bin outside Paris before he was allowed about again.”

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It wouldn’t require a great leap of faith to entertain the possibility that Brian Jones’s fascination in the Moroccan Master Musicians was to some extent fuelled by his well documented interest in the occult, even when taking into account the denials from some quarters that the half-man half-goat Boujeloud has no affiliation with Pan, or any other pagan deity for that matter. There’s a mystical, esoteric force underpinning the music, the history, and the heritage of Joujouka that would perhaps have appealed to the Rolling Stone. Consider for example the comments of renowned scholar and artist, Jean-Jacques Lebel made during an interview for the documentary on the life and times of Brion Gysin titled, ‘Flicker.’ He describes the villagers as, “a bunch of… heavy witchcraft, pre-Islamic brotherhood of men doing strange things like bringing about ghosts.” If true, one can only imagine how such occultish practises might’ve energised Jones’s curiosity in the Master Musicians and their ancient culture.
A year prior to his visit to Joujouka and the subsequent recordings which resulted from it came the release of, ‘A Degree of Murder,’ a West German movie that Jones composed, produced, arranged, and performed the music for, and which features Anita Pallenberg in the lead role of Marie, a woman who accidentally shoots her boyfriend and then hires two men to help her dump the dead body. Although never officially issued in it’s own right, Brian’s soundtrack is the first significant solo outing by a member of The Rolling Stones.
However, this milestone in the band’s long and lively history was overshadowed at the time by a series of events that are now firmly ingrained in the annals of Rock & Pop culture. As the movie was being unveiled at the Cannes Film Festival in April / May 1967, the long arm of the law was descending upon the group in one fell swoop. In London, police raided Brian’s apartment and arrested him on suspicion of drugs possession whilst in another part of the country on the very same day, Mick and Keith were in court being charged in connection with an unrelated bust earlier in the year. Jagger was accused of illegally possessing amphetamine pills, and Richards with allowing his house to be used for the purpose of smoking cannabis. Both pleaded ‘not guilty.’ Released on bail, their trial date was set for June. In his memoirs, Keith makes note of the police raid on Brian’s London residence which occurred “almost on the hour” that he and Mick were standing before magistrates. The “stitch-up,” as he describes it, “was orchestrated and synchronised with rare precision. But due to some small glitch of stage management, the Press actually arrived, television crews included, a few minutes before the police knocked on Brian’s door with their warrant. The police had to push through the army of hacks that they had summoned to get to the door. But this collusion was barely noticeable in the farce that unfolded.” The unfolding “farce” that he refers to is a short but eventful chapter in the Rolling Stones story in which two young, long-haired, drug-using Pop-star upstarts are pitted against the old guard of the Great British Establishment and it’s disapproving justice system which seeks to make examples of them and quash the power and influence they wield over an impressionable generation of youth. The February 1967 raid on ‘Redlands‘ – Richard’s country home in the English county of Sussex – provided the backdrop for this story, and for a brief period during the first half of that year, Mick and Keith were carried off in a headline-hitting whirlwind of controversy and scandal the likes of which they’d never experienced before (or since). However, for all the ‘hype & hoopla’ that was undoubtedly generated by the media at the time in order to boost public interest in the lurid details of the drug bust, it’s perhaps the less reported aspects of it that are actually the most sensational, complete with allegations and evidence implicating the police, the UK tabloid Press, and even the secret services in a web of conspiracy and deceit. The origins of the Redlands raid has been linked back to an article in the ‘News of the World,’ the British newspaper with a noted and notorious reputation for specialising in stories of a salacious nature. In early February 1967, it published extracts of what it claimed was an interview with Mick Jagger who was apparently seen out enjoying drinks at a London nightclub. He was quoted as saying, “I don’t go much on it (LSD) now the cats have taken it up. It’ll just get a dirty name. I remember the first time I took it. It was on our tour with two American Rock & Roll stars.” He reportedly swallowed down a number of amphetamines during the candid discussion explaining that, “I just wouldn’t keep awake in places like this if I didn’t have them.” As it turned out, the Rolling Stone cited in the article wasn’t Mick Jagger, but, Brian Jones. The newspaper – whether intentionally or not – had attributed the quotes to the wrong name. When Jagger read the article, he contacted his lawyers and made moves to sue the ’News of the World’ for libel. An account describing what happened as a result of his legal bid was aired recently by author, Simon Wells. He’s interviewed a number of key figures closely associated with the Redlands raid and it’s aftermath, and has also pored through official documents from police, courts, and solicitors of the time. His book ‘Butterfly on the Wheel. Rolling Stones – The Great Bust’ documents those findings. Speaking to the radio/music website, ‘IconFetch.com’ last year he said, “the possibility of a defamation of character suit against the paper would’ve been enormous – given Jagger’s reputation. I was told it could’ve run to quarter of a million pounds in 1967… it’s a massive lawsuit. It could’ve effectively derailed the paper. So, to stymie that lawsuit, they got together and decided, ‘well, we’ve got to find him in possession of drugs, or in a situation where there’s drugs – basically to embarrass the lawsuit.’ They got one of their most… prominent… reporters to infiltrate the Stones’ circle, pay off a driver, and find out the movements of The Stones – there was also some phone-tapping going on, and some other stuff as well.” In ‘Life,’ Keith Richards recalls, “it was Patrick, my Belgian chauffeur, who sold us out to the ‘News of the World’… I’m paying this driver handsomely, and the gig’s the gig, keep schtum. But the ‘News of the World’ got to him. Didn’t do him any good. As I heard it, he never walked the same again.” That the newspaper should be linked to untoward surveillance techniques is nothing new of course. It’s involvement in a series of ongoing phone-hacking scandals dating from 2005 onwards were examined in 2011 by a public government inquiry chaired by the judge, Lord Justice Leveson. Employees of the tabloid have been accused of accessing the voicemails of various celebrities, politicians, and other well known figures as well as relatives of British soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, victims of the London 7/7 bombings, and murdered schoolgirl, Milly Dowler. A succession of police investigations have resulted in the imprisonment of a royal correspondent, and the arrest of a number of reporters and also former ‘News of the World’ editor, Rebekah Brooks, who is due to stand trial in September 2013. In March this year, a counter-terrorism officer in the London Metropolitan Police was jailed for 15 months for offering to sell information to the newspaper. Simon Wells says intelligence gathered by the tabloid back in 1967 on Mick Jagger’s movements led it to Redlands where the singer was planning to spend some time with Keith and a small group of friends and associates. He explains, “they determined that the party was going to happen at the Redlands house and that they would tip off police – I found in… papers which I rediscovered that the ’News of the World’ tipped off London police who…refused to act on it by saying that… if they actually found Mick Jagger in possession of drugs, it could well backfire on the squad. ’News of the World’ were undeterred – they actually then turned it over to the local police in Chichester in Sussex… and they leant on the head of the police there, and this person… from what I can gather from the intelligence I received from people who worked there at the time – that the ’News of the World’ made it clear that if the raid didn’t take place, they would then embarrass the police force for not being hard on drugs – so their hand was forced.”

Simon Wells.

Mick Jagger and girlfriend Marianne Faithfull made their way to Redlands on the Saturday night of February 11th 1967. There they were joined by renowned British photographer, Michael Cooper; the reputed antiques dealer, Christopher Gibbs; Keith’s upper-class drifter friend and hanger-on, Nicky Kramer; influential modern-art dealer, Robert Fraser, and his Moroccan servant, Mohammed. Also present was a mysterious individual thought to be either of Canadian or American descent going by the name of, David Schneiderman and who’d flown into London not long before. Keith Richards recalls that “Schneiderman, who also went by the moniker of ‘Acid King,’ was the source of that very high-quality Acid of the time, such brands as Strawberry Fields, Sunshine, and Purple Haze – where do you think Jimi (Hendrix) got that from? All kinds of mixtures, and that’s how Schneiderman got in on the crowd, by providing this super-duper Acid.”

Mick and Keith pictured at Redlands, 1967.

Marianne Faithfull remembers waking up on the morning of Sunday February 12th to a cup of tea and a tab of LSD courtesy of the Acid King who was making his rounds through the house ensuring the guests were supplied with their trips for that day. In her memoirs, she writes, “we took it and the first bit was a sort of waiting-for-the-Acid-to-come-on time. I remember getting quite sick and I think Mick did, too. It was very strong Acid, stronger than anything I’ve ever had since. Nobody talked a lot that day. The usual conscious babble subsided. It was very strong Acid and the experience was so overwhelming that there wasn’t much you could put into words.” As daylight dimmed and the evening hours set in, Keith remembers, “there was a knock at the door, I look through the window and there’s this whole lot of dwarves outside, but they’re all wearing the same clothes! They were policemen, but I didn’t know it. They just looked like very small people wearing dark blue with shiny bits and helmets. They were trying to read a warrant to me. ’Oh that’s very nice, but it’s a bit cold outside, come on in and read it to me over the fireplace.’ I’d never been busted before and I was still on Acid. While we‘re gently bouncing down from the Acid, they‘re trampling through the place, doing what they‘ve got to do… ” One of the 18 police officers deployed for the raid that night was Detective Constable Evelyn Florence Fuller. In documents presented in the subsequent court case, she describes what she found whilst searching through Jagger’s and Faithfull’s bedroom – and it makes for interesting reading…

“I went up the stairs, turned left and at the end of the landing there was a large bedroom which had a double bed in it which had no bed-clothes on it. There were pink ostrich feathers lying on the bed and on a chair in the bedroom were items of clothing; a pair of black velvet trousers, a white bra, a white lace Edwardian blouse, a black cloth half coat, a black sombrero-type hat, and a pair of mauve-coloured ladies boots. I also noticed a large chest of drawers on the top of which were a number of books on witch-craft; one book was called ’Games to Play.’ On the floor was a large hold-all which contained two or three dagger-type weapons.”

“Books on witchcraft“?… “Dagger-type weapons”? What exactly was going on at ‘Redlands’ that weekend?… Some form of Acid-fuelled occult magick group-ritual perhaps?

During the search, police found four amphetamine tablets in the pocket of a jacket that Jagger said belonged to him, although Marianne has since maintained that he was assuming responsibility for drugs that were in fact hers. Robert Fraser, meanwhile, tried to convince officers that the heroin pills they discovered in his possession were actually for his diabetes. These substances, along with various other items, were taken away that night for analysis. No arrests were made and the Redlands party, in Richard’s words, “just carried on.”
One of the most intriguing aspects of the raid is the cloud of suspicion that hangs over the enigmatic David Schneiderman who Keith and Marianne believe was sent to discredit The Stones. Of particular interest is his attache case which was supposedly full of drugs and which police allegedly failed to search, even though it sat on a table in full view of them at Redlands that night. Richards has reportedly said, “when a cop asked to see the contents of his case, Schneiderman said it was full of exposed film and couldn’t be opened, and the cop let it go at that.” In her 1994 autobiography, Faithfull writes, “almost the classic dealer’s suitcase you’d see on any cop show, and they didn’t examine one thing in it!” Marianne also questions the timing of Schneiderman’s unexpected arrival in the UK, which just so happened to coincide with Mick Jagger’s legal moves against the ‘News of the World.’ She states, “of course, nobody knew about this writ. The only people who knew were those at the ‘News of the World.’ It wasn’t released to the Press. And it’s this fact that makes everything else that happened highly suspicious. The ‘News of the World’ obviously called the little men in MI5 and said: ‘Look, these people need to be taken down. Will you help us?’ And the little men said, ‘Of course, we’d only be too pleased.’ The snare was going to be the drugs, of course. They would set it all up with the West Sussex police and that would be that. Their master stroke was to bring David Schneiderman over from California with loads of LSD to set us up. They must have flown him in for this bust. He appeared very fast; right after the writ had been issued he showed up at Robert Fraser’s flat. Robert called up and said: ‘We’ve got this guy here, David Schneiderman, a Yank, just got in from California and he’s brought this great Acid with him from the States. It’s called White Lightning or something fabulous like that and he wants to lay some on us, man.’ So I said, ‘how f*****g great! Wait, Robert, I’ve got a fantastic idea, why don’t we all go down to Redlands for the weekend. I’ll call Keith right now and set it up.’ And right after all this, Schneiderman vanished into thin air (whisked out of the country I should think).” In ‘Life,’ Richards offers a similar observation regarding the Acid King’s fleeting presence, stating, “he was at every party for about two weeks and then mysteriously disappeared and was never seen again.” Later in the book, he too accuses him of colluding with the ’News of the World.’ After the two Stones stood trial in June, the notorious tabloid reportedly published a front-page editorial in which it denied any association with Schneiderman and rejected claims it had planted him at Redlands in order to discredit Jagger’s libel action. It also dismissed accusations that it had spied on the singer. The newspaper did admit tipping off police about Keith‘s party, but stated it was acting on the information of a reader.

Keith photographed with the ‘Acid King’ during that notorious February weekend.

Faithfull’s and Richards’ accounts of what occurred at Redlands have also been rebuffed by those associated with Thomas Davies, a member of the 18-strong team that searched through the Rolling Stone’s house that night. This is according to Simon Wells and information collected during his own investigation into the bust which doesn’t support Keith’s and Marianne’s claims that Schneiderman‘s alleged attache case of drugs was left unopened. Although now deceased, the author learned of Davies’s version of events from official police-notes written after the raid. Wells says, “certainly from the knowledge I gathered from colleagues of Thomas Davies… if someone said to you, ‘don’t open my bag…’. the first thing you do is, you tear it to bits. So, his bag was searched.” Simon has also questioned the validity of fresh allegations that have surfaced in recent months which correspond with Marianne Faithfull’s long-established suspicions that Schneiderman was a secret service asset sent to destroy the Rolling Stones. The latest claims appeared on the news-site ’Mail Online’ in September 2012, just weeks before the release of, ‘Mick Jagger,’ a biography by reputed Rock music writer, Philip Norman. Whilst researching the Redlands incident in preparation for the book, the author came into contact with Maggie Abbott, a British film agent based in Los Angeles who, during the 1980s, befriended David Jove, a pioneering TV producer who later confided to her that his real name was David Snyderman AKA the Acid King. In the ‘Mail Online,‘ Norman states, “in January 1967, according to the account he gave Maggie Abbott, Snyderman was a failed TV actor, drifting around Europe in the American hippie throng with Swinging London as his final destination. At Heathrow Airport he was caught with drugs in his luggage and expected to be thrown into jail and instantly deported. Instead, British Customs handed him over to some ‘heavy people’ who hinted they belonged to MI5 and told him there was ‘a way out’ of his predicament. This was to infiltrate the Rolling Stones, supply Mick Jagger and Keith Richards with drugs, and then get them busted. According to Snyderman, MI5 were operating on behalf of an FBI offshoot known as COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program) set up by the FBI’s director, J. Edgar Hoover, in the 1920s to protect national security and maintain the existing social and political order. By 1967, COINTELPRO was focusing on the subversive effect of Rock music on America’s young, particularly the kind coming from Britain, and most particularly the kind played by The Rolling Stones.” The ‘Mail Online’ feature, which also appears to support Richards’ and Faithfull’s allegations regarding Schneiderman’s infamous bag of drugs, was slammed by Simon Wells. In comments posted on a Rolling Stones internet forum, he described it as reeking “of revived sensationalism to sell a new book” and criticised the author for apparently failing to acknowledge the claims of police officer, Thomas Davies who “made copious reference in his notes that he did search the attache case.”
Simon’s frustration is understandable, and he has legitimate reason to question some of Norman’s claims too. However, there’s nothing ‘sensational’ in the idea of the FBI willingly targeting influential Rock musicians in a drug-sting. Back in the early-to-mid 1970s, the secret services considered entrapping former Beatle John Lennon in a narcotics bust in a bid to ensure his deportation from the United States at a time when he was aligning himself closely with radical political activists of the era including Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. This is according to history professor, Jon Wiener who was finally granted access to pages of confidential FBI documents in 1997 after filing a Freedom of Information request in 1981. His research led to the book, ‘Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files.’ Speaking to reporter Amy Goodman during an interview on the TV news-show ’Democracy Now!’ in December 2005, he claimed the organisation was uneasy with Lennon’s plans to stage a series of thought-provoking concerts in 1972. Wiener said then-President Richard Nixon, “was preparing to run for re-election. The war in Vietnam had reached a peak. It was clear that this was going to be a big issue in ’72. The concert-tour that Lennon was planning would have been quite a big deal… what Lennon had in mind was something different. He wanted to combine Rock music with radical politics and use the tour to urge young people to register to vote – 1972 was the first year that 18-year-olds were given the right to vote, so that was going to be an important project – and vote against the war, and that meant voting against Nixon. Nixon got wind of this plan and promptly began deportation proceedings against Lennon to try to get him out of the country to prevent this tour from ever happening.” According to a February 1972 memo, Republican Senator and Nixon supporter, Strom Thurmond suggested that “deportation would be a strategic counter-measure” against Lennon. A month later, the United States ‘Immigration and Naturalization Service’ began formal proceedings to have him deported, arguing that his 1968 conviction for cannabis possession in London had made him ineligible for admission to the U.S. This prompted a three-year court battle as Lennon fought to remain in the country. Speaking during an earlier interview for ’Democracy Now!’ in May 2000, Weiner claims the FBI seriously considered the benefits of a drug bust to eject the former Beatle from the US after it received reports from an undercover agent attending a meeting of radical political figures that plans were afoot to stage anti-war demonstrations at the Republican National Convention in Miami where President Nixon was poised to be re-nominated. Weiner says, “the FBI continued to worry throughout the summer of 1972 that Lennon was going to participate in demonstrations outside the Republican National Convention, so they sent word down to the Miami FBI to, quote, ‘arrest Lennon, if at all possible, on possession of narcotics charges,’ which they said would make him more immediately deportable. This seems to me to be an effort to set Lennon up for a drug bust, since the FBI doesn’t enforce possession of narcotics charges; this is a State and local matter. So it’s clearly, you know, an abuse of power.”

John Wiener’s book.

The once secret COINTELPRO project that Philip Norman alludes to, was finally exposed and shutdown in 1971 after an activist group burglarised an FBI office and stole confidential documents that revealed it’s existence. However, as has been confirmed in the years since, the tactics applied by the bureau’s former offshoot continued, despite it’s formal abolishment, and the plot to deport Lennon in 1972 bears many of it’s classic hallmarks. In 1976, covert tactics such as these were revealed publicly during an investigation by the ‘Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities of the United States Senate’ – commonly referred to as the “Church Committee.” It concluded that the FBI’s COINTELPRO program had unlawfully “harassed” and “disrupted” individuals and groups on the basis of their political beliefs and lifestyles, “even when those beliefs posed no threat of violence or illegal acts on behalf of a hostile foreign power.” Organisations such as the ‘Women’s Liberation Movement’ had been targeted by the bureau, as well as anti-Vietnam War activists, and the civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The FBI employed undercover agents to infiltrate groups, and adopted “unsavoury and vicious tactics… including anonymous attempts to break up marriages, disrupt meetings,” and, “ostracise persons from their professions.” The Church Committee also discovered evidence of covert media manipulation in order to “influence the public’s perception of persons and organisations by disseminating derogatory information to the Press, either anonymously or through ‘friendly’ news contacts.” Had a similar tactic been used against Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, perhaps by COINTELPRO? Was Marianne Faithfull correct then to surmise in her autobiography that the ‘News of the World’ “obviously called the little men in MI5” to assist in bringing down The Rolling Stones? Philip Norman does note a number of factors in his ‘Mail Online’ feature that would’ve been reason enough for the FBI and British intelligence services to team up and work in league against the legendary group, factors that a number of music and sociological commentators over the decades have highlighted when assessing the cultural impact of The Stones during the 1960s. The band’s enigmatic manager, Andrew Loog Oldham is often cited in such appraisals, primarily for his role in marketing them in the early part of their career as the scruffy, rebellious and dangerous equivalent to the clean, family-friendly Beatles. Norman writes, “as Beatlemania swept the nation, and the Fab Four appeared on the Royal Variety Show, respectfully ducking their mop-tops before the Queen Mother, he (Oldham) realised that The Beatles’ original fans felt let down by their mainstream success. Where was the excitement, the rebellion, in liking the same band your parents, or even grandparents did? Oldham set about marketing the Rolling Stones as the anti-Beatles, the scowling flip side of the coin… When they burst on to the music scene in 1963 it was in a Britain that still equated masculinity with the Army recruit’s stringent ‘short back and sides’. Curling over ears and brushing collars, the Stones’ long locks were almost as much as an affront to polite society as Mick Jagger’s unusually large mouth and vivid red lips. These seemed to have an indecency all of their own, even before they snarled out The Stones’ highly provocative lyrics. In June 1965, their single ‘Satisfaction’ created the greatest scandal in America since Elvis Presley first swivelled his hips exactly a decade earlier. With the line ‘tryin’ to make some girl’, it contained the first direct reference to sex in any Pop song, an outrage compounded 18 months later when The Stones released ‘Let’s Spend the Night Together.’ There had been innumerable songs about nocturnal trysts but never one with so barefaced an invitation to get between the sheets. The furore was such that, when The Stones previewed the song on America’s Ed Sullivan television show in January 1967, Mick was forced to change the crucial phrase to ‘Let’s Spend Some Time Together.’ He agreed to do so, but only with much pointed eye-rolling every time he reached the newly-neutered line. All this was bad enough, but then came a truly unforgivable incident. A week after that appearance on the Ed Sullivan show, and just three weeks before the Redlands drugs bust, The Stones were invited to top the bill on ‘Sunday Night At The London Palladium,’ the much-loved TV variety show which had been the making of The Beatles. During rehearsals they announced that they would not take part in the hallowed tradition of acts waving goodbye to viewers from a revolving podium during the grand finale. In the end they compromised – standing off the podium and waving, with clear sarcasm and disrespect. This highly rebellious act won them few friends.” It’s also perhaps worth noting the trail of violence, destruction (and death) that The Stones left behind them on their riotous concert tours and how it might have been perceived by the pillars of The Establishment and their shadowy secret service associates who were apparently hell bent on crushing dissent amongst the younger generation. In 1967, Mick Jagger reportedly told a journalist, “I see a great deal of danger in the air. Teenagers are not screaming over Pop music anymore, they’re screaming for much deeper reasons. We’re only serving as a means of giving them an outlet. Pop music is just the superficial tissue. When I’m on the stage I sense that the teenagers are trying to communicate to me, like by telepathy, a message of some urgency. Not about me or my music, but about the world and the way they live. I interpret it as their demonstration against society and it’s sick attitudes. Teenagers the world over are weary of being pushed around by half-witted politicians who attempt to dominate their way of thinking and set a code for their living. This is a protest against the system.” And so, Philip Norman continues, “the cumulative effect of all these outrages became clear when the FBI asked for MI5’s co-operation in getting Mick Jagger and Keith Richards charged with drug possession, thus ensuring that they would be denied visas for the US tours which were essential if they were to remain at the top in the music business. By now MI5 was more than happy to assist in the thwarting of these public menaces, and the detention of David Snyderman at Heathrow Airport presented an opportunity too good to miss. Within a couple of weeks of agreeing to help the secret services, he had somehow become friendly with all the front-line Stones… He duly arrived for that weekend at Redlands… He kept his cover throughout the Saturday but the following day he almost gave the game away, talking enigmatically to photographer Michael Cooper about spying and espionage. ‘He was into the James Bond thing,’ recalls Cooper. ‘You know, the whole CIA bit.’”

Philip Norman.

In the biography, ‘Mick Jagger,‘ Norman claims that Cooper, “recalled a moment at Redlands when, searching through Acid King David’s luggage for hash, he’d noticed a passport in the name ‘David English.’ Even the surname they’d known him by – Snyderman? Sniderman? Schneiderman? – now seemed suspiciously vague, if indeed, it was genuine.” Additionally, “not long after turning into David Jove, he had married a comedienne named Lotus Weinstock, whose brother, Joel, also discovered his real surname. Jove gave Joel Weinstock a few hints about the Redlands story, but threatened to kill him if he ever breathed a word of it.” David’s and Lotus’s daughter is the recording artist, Lili Haydn, who Funk legend George Clinton has reportedly hailed, “the Jimi Hendrix of the violin.” In yet another ‘Mail Online’ article, this time from 2010, it’s claimed that she too finally learned of her father’s past identity in a confession he made to her shortly before losing his battle to cancer in 2004 aged 61. Maggie Abbott says, “before his death he said he was the Acid King. He never showed any remorse for what he did. David was a heavy drug user but had a quick wit. He was the perfect choice to infiltrate The Stones. He told me he wasn’t a drug dealer. He felt he was expanding the consciousness of some of the greatest minds of his day.”

Maggie Abbott with Rod Stewart.

When she and David met in the early ’80s, he was a pioneering television producer, perhaps best known for creating the US TV programme, ‘New Wave Theatre,’ which showcased up and coming Punk and New Wave acts. Ironically, Abbott used to represent Mick Jagger in her role as a film-agent and also knew Marianne Faithfull whom she unwittingly introduced to David in 1985 when she was still unaware of his alleged former life. “Taking her over to his den late one night when everywhere else was closed,” she writes on her website, “he broke his years of underground cover by telling her his real name, must have been his ego, too hard to resist seeing her shock too.” In the ‘Mail Online’ Maggie says, “when we got into my car, she said, ‘it’s him, the Acid King. He set up the Redlands bust. Don’t ever see him again.’ Two months after the evening with Marianne, I finally had it out with him. To my amazement, he told me everything. He said, ‘it’s a relief to be able to talk about it.’”

David Jove the alleged Acid King with wife, Lotus Weinstock.

In her 1994 autobiography, Marianne also recalls coming into contact with Jove / Schneiderman / Snyderman / Sniderman / English, although she appears to be referring to a meeting that occurred some years after her alleged encounter with him in 1985. She writes, “I saw him about five years ago in Los Angeles. He’s become quite harebrained. I think the Redlands business derailed him. When somebody comes apart after something like this, it’s usually because they’ve done something they can’t live with.” The former Acid King was, according to Philip Norman, forever haunted by his actions back in February 1967 because although he “had done everything asked of him, and afterwards had been discreet to the point of changing his identity, his reward was what he called a ‘lifetime of fear.’ For the rest of his days, even after COINTELPRO no longer existed, he half expected those heavy people who’d spirited him out of Britain in 1967 to come after him and make sure he never did blow his cover.” Maggie Abbott says, “I thought about trying to persuade David to come clean publicly. But he was always armed with a handgun and I feared that if I gave him away, he’d shoot me.” Joel Weinstock, who Philip Norman claims David had threatened, reportedly told the ‘Mail Online,’ “one New Year’s Eve, he showed me a gun and said he’d just killed a man who was messing with his car.” It’s also rumoured that Jove murdered Peter Ivers, the presenter of ‘New Wave Theatre.’ He was found bludgeoned to death with a hammer in his Los Angeles apartment in 1983. The killer has never been identified. Abbott says, “there was talk that Peter had decided to leave the show and David was angry.” Although the Los Angeles Police Department has reportedly re-opened the investigation into his slaying, it’s perhaps safe to assume that the killing will forever remain a mystery, as will the exact circumstances surrounding the movements of David ‘Jove’ during February 1967. However, in her 1994 autobiography, Marianne Faithfull is unequivocal. “In retrospect it was obvious to all of us that Schneiderman had set us up,” she writes. “At the time this conspiracy theory business sounded like your typical drugged-out, paranoid hippie ravings, but if you read the recent revelations of what MI5 was up to around this time, it doesn’t seem so far-fetched.” In ‘Life,’ Keith Richards states, “we’d become the focal point of a nervous Establishment. I’d obviously p****d off the authorities. I’m a guitar player in a Pop band and I’m being targeted by the British government and it’s vicious police force, all of which shows me how frightened they are. We won two world wars, and these people are shivering in their Goddamn boots. ‘All your children will be like this if you don’t stop this right now.’ There was such ignorance on both sides. We didn’t know we were doing anything that was going to bring the empire crashing to the floor, and they were searching in their sugar bowls not knowing what they were looking for.” At the trial, Mick Jagger was sentenced to three months in prison for possession of amphetamines and Keith Richards to one year for allowing cannabis to be smoked in his home.

Reflecting on Judge Leslie Allen Block’s ruling, Simon Wells says, “for a misdemeanour that this day would be treated in the same way as a parking ticket, they received exemplary sentences, but more than that… there were other less anonymous young men who were receiving the same sort of treatment. So it wasn’t exemplary as far as Mick and Keith were concerned, but he certainly showed no clemency.” Jagger was sent to Brixton Prison in south London, and Keith Richards to Wormwood Scrubs in the west of the city. The guitarist recalls that “most of the first day of the prison sentence was induction. You get in with the rest of the inductees and take a shower and they spray you with lice spray. Oh, nice one, son. The whole place is meant to intimidate you to the max. I walked around in an orderly circle with so much rabbit going on it took me a while to get a touch on the back. ‘Keef, you got bail, you sod.’ Our lawyers had filed an appeal and I’d been released on bail.” So had Jagger.

Judge Block’s sentencing sparked an uproar among certain quarters of society. Not surprisingly, famous musicians of the day rallied round in solidarity. The Who recorded cover versions of the Stones songs ‘The Last Time’ and ‘Under My Thumb’ to campaign for their release although by the time these were made available, Mick and Keith were already out of jail.

The Who’s support for Mick and Keith.(CLICK TO ENLARGE)

Prior to the trial, John Lennon and Paul McCartney sang backing vocals on The Rolling Stones’ ‘We Love You,’ a track written and recorded by the band in response to the drug busts. It begins with the jangling sound of a jailer’s keys followed by echoing footsteps and a cell door being slammed shut. Then, a distinctive piano-intro played by noted session musician, Nicky Hopkins appears before we’re led into a four-minute-plus psychedelia-soaked sonic collage that’s punctuated by eerie sound-effects, tribal-style drum rhythms and hypnotic vocal harmonies. Released as a single in August ‘67, there was also an accompanying music-video which showed the band at work in the studio (including a seemingly ‘wasted’ Brian Jones) as well as a depiction of a court-room scene in which Richards plays the role of the judge and Jagger a defendant. Marianne Faithfull also appears and is seen standing at the dock before a bewigged Keith with a fur rug in her hands looking remorseful. This is no doubt a reference to the over-emphasis that police, the courts and news-media dedicated to her state of (un)dress on the night of the Redlands bust when officers witnessed her wearing nothing but a fur rug. Having just finished a bath, she’d wrapped it around her naked body and rejoined her fellow house-guests. In her autobiography, she recalls that, “the lady constable wanted to search me. I dropped the fur rug just for a second. It wasn’t one bit lascivious, just a quick flounce done very gracefully, almost like a curtsy, so they could see I had no clothes on and that’s all. I thought it was so hysterically funny. I couldn’t help myself. I always have been an incorrigible exhibitionist. It was the gulf between us on Acid and them with their note-pads that made it seem so hilarious at the time. It didn’t seem quite so funny later. I certainly got paid back in spades.” Indeed she did. A rumour that was born from the Redlands bust is that Faithfull was caught in a compromising situation with a ’Mars’ chocolate-bar when police raided the house. There’s no evidence to prove this actually occurred and Marianne has repeatedly and vehemently denied it in the years since. Despite her protestations though, this slice of Rock folklore has become an established part of everyday urban legend.
The ‘fur rug factor’ was also referred to by the prosecution at the trial, as Keith Richards documents in ‘Life.’ He writes,

The actual exchange went as follows:

Morris (The Prosecutor): There was, as we know, a young woman sitting on a settee wearing only a rug. Would you agree, in the ordinary course of events, you would expect a young woman to be embarrassed if she had nothing on but a rug in the presence of eight men, two of whom were hangers-on and the third a Moroccan servant?Keith: Not at all.Morris: You regard that, do you, as quite normal?Keith: We are not old men. We are not worried about petty morals.

It was perhaps something of a surprise to The Rolling Stones that the most significant and effective support in the wake of the drug bust came from what might have been perceived at the time one of Great Britain’s bastions of ‘The Establishment‘; None other than ’The Times’ newspaper. Some days after Mick and Keith’s sentencing, it published an article that was specially written by it’s editor, William Rees-Mogg, titled, ‘Who Breaks a Butterfly on a Wheel?’ It not only criticised and denounced Judge Block’s ruling, but the begrudging disdain that was being directed by some towards Mick Jagger.

Rees-Mogg wrote,

“Mr. Jagger was charged with being in possession of four tablets containing amphetamine sulphate and methyl amphetamine hydrochloride… They are not a highly dangerous drug, or in proper dosage a dangerous drug at all… Four is not a large number. This is not the quantity which a pusher of drugs would have on him, nor even the quantity one would expect in an addict. It is surprising… that Judge Block should have decided to sentence Mr. Jagger to imprisonment and particularly surprising as Mr. Jagger’s is about as mild a drug case as can ever have been brought before the Courts.

Judge Allen Block.

It would be wrong to speculate on the judge’s reasons which we do not know. It is however, possible to consider the public reaction. There are many people who take a primitive view of the matter, what one might call a pre-legal view of the matter. They consider that Mr. Jagger has ‘got what was coming to him.‘ They resent the anarchic quality of The Rolling Stones’ performances, dislike their songs, dislike their influence on teenagers and broadly suspect them of decadence…

As a sociological concern this may be reasonable enough, and at an emotional level it is very understandable, but it has nothing at all to do with the case.”

William Rees-Mogg’s ‘Times’ editorial is often regarded a crucial deciding factor in the eventual overturning of Keith’s conviction and the reduction of Mick’s sentence to a Conditional Discharge. Brian Jones’s drug arrest back in May ‘67 meanwhile, also saw out it’s end in the courts where he was handed a nine-month prison-term for possession of cannabis and permitting his home to be used by others for smoking it. This was later reduced on appeal to a £1,000 fine and three months probation.
Author, Simon Wells believes the Redlands incident and the ensuing trial was a watershed moment that influenced future attitudes towards drugs in Britain. He says, “it really totally threw up into the air the whole situation of drug laws and soft drug use. The whole debate of drug use – courtesy of what had happened to Mick and Keith – was given a huge platform and a massive profile… When you look at what came off of this trial and imprisonment – it really informed drug laws, soft drug use – and more importantly the understanding of soft narcotic use. It actually led the way for a better understanding of that. So it’s a very important moment in British cultural history, and I dare say, for the rest of the world.” It also perhaps marked a turning point in the Rolling Stones’ history after which, their long-held reputation as Pop’s perennial ‘bad boys’ was elevated to a whole new level. Their manager, Andrew Loog Oldham had certainly played his part in cultivating this image early on in their career, marketing them as the dirty, wicked equivalent to The Beatles and masterminding such headlines as, ’Would You Let Your Daughter Marry a Rolling Stone?’

Pop svengali, Andrew Loog Oldham pictured during the 1960s.

However, none of his inspired trickery could perhaps compare to the scale of events that unfolded in the wake of the Redlands bust – after all – The Stones had apparently taken on The Establishment… and won. In ‘Life,‘ Keith Richards writes, “in retrospect, the judge actually played into our hands. He managed to turn it into a great PR coup for us, even though I must say I didn’t enjoy Wormwood Scrubs, even for 24 hours. The judge managed to turn me into some folk hero overnight.” Marianne Faithfull certainly shares that view. She states, “before Redlands, Keith had been overshadowed by Mick and Brian, but his defiance on the stand made him a major folk hero. This was the beginning of Keith’s legend. A symbol of dissipation and the demonic. And the amazing thing is that subsequently he actually became that. Satan’s right-hand man with the skull-rings and the demonic imagery. He turned it all to his advantage.”

“SKULL-RINGS AND DEMONIC IMAGERY”… Keith Pictured on the cover of his 2010 memoirs, ‘Life.’

Keith, and, in particular, Mick, most certainly did attract a significant degree of notoriety in the years that directly followed the Redlands furore for flirting as publicly as they did with “the demonic.” In fact, when both of them were released from prison, they returned to the studio to continue work on the next Rolling Stones album which was subsequently titled, ‘Their Satanic Majesties Request.’ It was their first recording since 1963 not to feature Andrew Loog Oldham’s name in the production credits and by the time it reached the stores in December ‘67, he’d effectively ceased to be their manager. Responsible not only for shaping the band’s public persona but also for convincing Jagger and Richards to start writing their own songs, he’d apparently served his purpose. In his absence, The Stones swaggered into a phase of unparalleled creative brilliance releasing a string of landmark, classic albums between 1968 and 1972. In the second instalment of this three-part retrospective (which is scheduled for posting here some time early 2014), ‘Conspiro Media’ will focus on this period when the band not only hit the peak of it’s powers, but was arguably at it’s most controversial, decadent, and devilishly dangerous.

** IN PART TWO: The Altamont Music Festival tragedy, The downfall of Brian Jones, ‘Sympathy for the Devil,’ Kenneth Anger, and much more.

There are many words that can be used to describe Rock band Muse, but “understated” surely isn’t one of them. Their music – occasionally epic in proportions – often hits the ears like a sonic sledgehammer; loud, grandiose, flamboyant and perhaps just a little ostentatious. Equally, their breath-taking live performances are an eye-popping feast of special-effects, floating props, acrobats and dancers. This no-holds-barred approach is perhaps one of the reasons why they built up a reputation within certain quarters (whether desired or not) as the unofficial champions of the so-called “Truth Movement.” Their song ‘Uprising’ is a testament to this. It’s message of defiance has been adopted by many within the ‘Alternative’ community, including heavyweights such as David Icke and Alex Jones who’ve used it as a soundtrack on which to carry their stark warnings of an impending New World Order. No other major music act before or since has ever tied it’s flag to the mast so openly, for example, album-titles such as ‘HAARP,’ or the song ‘MK Ultra’ leave little to the imagination, and front-man Matt Bellamy has become known for his unconventional views on everything from geo-politics and world finance to religion and ‘Big Brother,’ very often resulting in him being labelled within the mainstream as a ‘nutty conspiracy theorist.’ In 2006 Bellamy told ‘Kerrang!’ magazine, “9/11 is clearly an inside job, there’s massive evidence that suggests that it was allowed to happen, or even worse, deliberately made to happen. I’ve been playing with the fear of talking about some of this stuff because there’ll obviously be a backlash, but I feel strongly about it that I’ve got to say it.” However, in recent times, this reputation has come under question. Earlier this summer it was announced that Muse were to record the official song for the 2012 Olympics, prompting many to question why a band purported to be ‘anti-establishment’ had accepted an offer to represent an event that was the anti-thesis of everything it had claimed to rally against. Then, in September, Bellamy fanned the flames of doubt ever higher after he publicly stated that his earlier “inside job” views regarding 9/11 were mistaken. He told ‘Metro,’ “I don’t believe that any more, although there are lots of questions to be answered. I still read a lot about political history, the influence of corporations and the military but I make sure I’m reading from credible sources. I think my political views are a bit more nuanced now.” This apparent about-turn has been greeted with a mixture of confusion, anger and even betrayal by many on-lookers and commentators as they struggle to understand what is at the root of it all. Has Bellamy refined his views based on a genuine re-appraisal as he claims, or has he been corrupted by the trappings of success? Perhaps he’s been ‘compromised’ in some way? Or maybe – just maybe – he was confirming what some have suspected all along; that he is a False Prophet (mis)leading a number of his loyal supporters towards a dead-end?

His latest 9/11 comments were made prior to the unveiling of the new Muse offering ‘The 2nd Law’ and as a result, motivated ’Conspiro Media’ to prepare this lengthy retrospective. Would the new album continue where past recordings had left off by highlighting the hidden elements at work behind the public facade of world affairs, or were Bellamy’s recent remarks signalling in a new era of self restraint?

When Muse released their first album ‘Showbiz’ in 1999, there were very few hints of the apocalyptic and Orwellian themes that future recordings would explore. At times introspective, songs such as ‘Falling Down’ documented the band’s early days living in the small British seaside town of Teignmouth, Devon. Bellamy once described ’Showbiz’ “a very cathartic, personal album.” The band expanded their musical and lyrical horizons on their follow-up, 2001’s ‘Origin of Symmetry.’ One track in particular, titled ’Micro Cuts,’ points towards the direction the band would pursue on later albums. Matt has reportedly said the song stems from a TV programme he once watched which was “about psychological warfare and how the government could be controlling us using a type of radiation, sending pulses to our brains.” The 2003 album, ‘Absolution’ also marked a turning point, thanks in part to the invasion of Iraq in 2002 by the US, the UK and its’ allies. Bellamy told the ‘NME’ magazine shortly after it‘s release, “it’s not that we’re a political band, but I think it’s impossible to avoid these things. They’ve all come into everyone’s life whether they like it or not. In relation to the album, it’s come across more as a general fear and mistrust of the people in power. It’s about moments of extreme fear, and a fair bit of End of the World talk.” Indeed, according to Muse drummer, Dominic Howard, the Bellamy-written track ‘Apocalypse Please’ is based on a “religious person willing… the end of the world.” This theme is further explored in the video to the song ‘Sing for Absolution’ which begins with snow-laden scenes of a futuristic-looking world where a rocket-ship with Muse on board launches into space. As the craft leaves the atmosphere, it passes an enormous video-screen that reads: “Be prepared… the ice age is coming.” Further on in the journey, the rocket encounters an onslaught of asteroids, and despite Matt’s efforts to steer clear, it hits one, causing the ship to hurtle towards an orange-looking planet that appears to be engulfed in fire. Once crash-landing, the final scene shows the band standing in a desolate wasteland, and there in the distance we can see the lone figure of Big Ben amongst the rubble.

The closing scene of the ‘Sing for Absolution’ video.

The video to ‘Time Is Running Out,’ meanwhile, is reportedly based on the Stanley Kubrick movie ‘Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.’ The action is focused on a round-table in a darkened room that’s surrounded by top-rank military and suited officials, somewhat reminiscent of the iconic ‘War Room’ scenes in the aforementioned 1960s Black-comedy classic satirising the ‘Cold War‘ nuclear scare. As Muse perform their song on top of the table, the military-figures and officials begin to dance, before finally throwing their papers and documents in the air and falling to the floor.

On the left, a scene from the ‘Time is Running out’ video. On the right, ‘Dr. Strangelove.’

It’s worth noting at this point that the final song on the album, ‘Ruled by Secrecy,’ is said to be based on the book, ’Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History That Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids.’ Written by veteran ‘Alternative’ researcher and best-selling author, Jim Marrs, it claims that secret societies have played a pivotal yet hidden role in world events via such organisations and groups as the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission and ‘the Bilderbergers.’ Indeed, Matt’s song features the line, “change in the air, and they’ll hide everywhere, and no one knows who’s in control.” Could this be a reference to hidden forces beyond our recognition who’re manipulating our everyday lives for their own ends? Bellamy referenced the Trilateral Commission a few weeks after the release of ‘Absolution’ during an interview with ‘Rock Sound’ magazine. He said, “there’s definitely a different agenda going on, it’s all f****d isn’t it? There’s a group called the Trilateral Commission, set up in the ‘60s or ‘70s – basically the highest, most powerful people in Europe, USA and East Asia, those who own all the energy resources, media and the spin doctors for the Presidents. None of these people are actually politicians and they decide everything. In my mind there’s no question that that’s who is ruling the world. None of those people were elected in a democratic situation and it’s the same group of people working for whichever President comes in. We vote for their puppet, the government is unchangeable because they’re the people who own pharmaceutical companies, media and oil. They’re so much more powerful than any politician that you can imagine, and politicians have to answer to them before they do anything – they wouldn’t have been allowed into their position unless they’ve been through that Masonic-handshakes-behind-the-scenes thing. Unless you’re in the pocket of the media people you can’t even get any coverage if you want to run for any position in the government, so I’ve got no doubt that that’s the case.” The song is also reported to be a fictional story of a man who loses control and shoots his work-colleagues before returning home to his wife in his blood-stained shirt.RULED BY SECRECYRepress and restrainSteal the pressure and the painWash the blood off your handsThis time she won’t understand

Change in the airAnd they’ll hide everywhereAnd no one knows who’s in control

You’re working so hardAnd you’re never in chargeYour death creates successRebuild and suppress

Change in the airAnd they’ll hide everywhereAnd no one knows who’s in controlChange in the airAnd they’ll hide everywhereAnd no one knows who’s in control

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The first three Muse studio albums. From left to right; ‘Showbiz,’ ‘Origin of Symmetry,’ and ‘Absolution.’

Bellamy claims the group’s “end of the world talk” on ‘Absolution’ continued during the recording of the 2006 follow-up, ‘Black Holes and Revelations,’ and although Muse repeatedly maintained that they were not a “political band” throughout, some of the newer songs were drawn from world events of the time. Bellamy told ‘Under the Radar’ magazine in 2006, “politics isn’t something that’s always been a part of my life, but in the last few years I’ve just been observing what’s been going on all around us, and it’s quite alarming. In the last few years, I’ve really woken up to the fact that we are actually quite manipulated as the general public by our governments and by the media as well, and particularly the clandestine organisations which run to black budgets in the CIA, FBI, NSA and others.”
Unlike earlier works, a number of the lyrics on ‘Black Holes and Revelations’ were particularly scathing, uncompromising and even threatening in places. On the brooding ‘Take A Bow,’ Matt sings, “you corrupt. And bring corruption to all that you touch. Cast a spell on the country you run. You’ll burn in hell for your sins.” When he was asked in a 2006 magazine interview whether the song was aimed at Tony Blair or George W. Bush, he replied, “you could easily aim it at those types of people. There’s loads of them out there. It’s about the people who are kind of manipulating public opinion to their own means, which isn’t always the best for the people of the country.” He then referred to both leaders’ handling of the Iraq War and it’s aftermath. He said, “there’s obviously a global agenda taking place as well as an agenda to obtain the last bit of oil because all of our economies are absolutely dependent on oil. You can easily say that song is aimed at wishing, ‘wouldn’t it be nice if these people did actually have to pay the consequences?’ They have to pay the consequences for their actions. In ‘Take a Bow,’ you can hear the people who are at the bottom of the pyramid, who haven’t got any power, and they have this feeling of powerlessness, a feeling I have quite often, about some of these events – this sense of, ‘what can I do about this?’ It seems like no one is listening.” He told ‘Uncut’ magazine in the same year, “normally the lyrics are from a first person view, I’ve never really told stories of certain people. This time, it is a bit about struggling with various contrarities of life, but from a different person’s view, not from mine.”TAKE A BOWCorruptYou corruptAnd bring corruption to all that you touch

HoldYou’ll beholdAnd beholden for all that you’ve done

SpellCast a spellCast a spell on the country you run

And riskYou will riskYou will risk all their lives and their souls

And burnYou will burnYou will burn in hellYeah, you’ll burn in hellYou’ll burn in hellYou’ll burn in hell for your sins

Yeah, and burnYou will burnYou will burn in hellYeah, you’ll burn in hellYou’ll burn in hellYeah, you’ll burn in hellYou’ll burn in hellYeah you’ll burn in hell for your sins

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The songs, ‘Assassin’ and ‘City of Delusion’ follow a similar theme but are decidedly more hostile…ASSASSINWar is overdueThe time has come for you to shoot your leaders downJoin forces undergroundLose controlAnd increasing paceWarped and bewitchedTime to eraseWhatever they sayThese people are tornWild and bereftAssassin is born, yeahAim, shoot, kill your leadersAim, kill them allOppose and disagreeDestroy demonocracyLose controlAnd increasing paceWarped and bewitchedTime to eraseWhatever they sayThese people are tornWild and bereftAssassin is born, yeah

CITY OF DELUSIONStay away from meBuild a fortressAnd shield your beliefsTouch the divineAs we fall in line

Can I believeWhen I don’t trustAll your theoriesTurn to dustI choose to hideFrom the all seeing eye

Destroy this City of DelusionBreak these walls downI will avengeJustify my reasonsWith your blood

You’ll not restSettle for lessUntil you guzzleAnd squander what’s leftDo not denyThat you live and let die

Destroy this City of DelusionBreak these walls downI will avengeJustify my reasonsWith your blood

Destroy this City of DelusionBreak these walls downI will avengeJustify my reasonsWith your blood

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At just over two minutes, the Iraq War-inspired ‘Soldier’s Poem’ is the shortest track on the album and finds Muse downing their loud instruments temporarily for a softer, quieter approach. Bellamy sings accordingly and delivers a tender vocal performance that compliments the overall song despite it’s underlying message and the pervading sense of cold disillusionment in the lyrics. He told ‘Uncut’ magazine, “I felt sympathy with all the soldiers fighting in the (Iraq) war, but who are never talked about in the media because war is such an anonymous monstrosity. People often forget that soldiers risk their lives and amidst all the political debates their lives come least. To me, it was more interesting to look at the man, or the men, who die in war. It is not really about the political aspect or arguments for or against the war in Iraq. It is written from a soldier’s view.”SOLDIER’S POEMThrow it all awayLet’s lose ourselves‘Cause there’s no one left for us to blameIt’s a shame we’re all dyingAnd do you think you deserve your freedom

How could you send us so far away from homeWhen you know damn well that this is wrongI would still lay down my life for youAnd do you think you deserve your freedom

No I don’t think you doThere’s no justice in the worldThere’s no justice in the worldAnd there never was

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‘Soldier’s Poem’ is followed by the mid-tempo Rocker, ‘Invincible,’ perhaps the most positive and uplifting song on the entire album. Bellamy claims both songs were originally intended to be “almost” one continuous piece with ‘Invincible’ providing “optimism” in contrast to the overwhelming sense of hopelessness expressed in ‘Soldier’s Poem.’ In 2008, he told ’State’ magazine that ’Invincible’ was exploring, “the more optimistic side, in that if people just knew how much power we really had, we could change anything. Like the Iraq war, for example. A million people protesting is not really enough but maybe five million people, with a few bricks being thrown at Parliament, that probably would change things. I think the optimistic side is coming through, I suppose, through the idea that if people could see what’s happening without being led all the time, then change would be easy to take place.”INVINCIBLEFollow throughMake your dreams come trueDon’t give up the fightYou will be alright‘Cause there’s no one like you in the universe

Don’t be afraidWhat your mind conceivesYou should make a standStand up for what you believeAnd tonightWe can truly sayTogether we’re invincible

During the struggleThey will pull us downBut please, pleaseLet’s use this chanceTo turn things aroundAnd tonightWe can truly sayTogether we’re invincible

Do it on your ownIt makes no difference to meWhat you leave behindWhat you choose to beAnd whatever they sayYour souls unbreakable

During the struggleThey will pull us downBut please, pleaseLet’s use this chanceTo turn things aroundAnd tonightWe can truly sayTogether we’re invincibleTogether we’re invincible

During the struggleThey will pull us downPlease, pleaseLet’s use this chanceTo turn things aroundAnd tonightWe can truly sayTogether we’re invincibleTogether we’re invincible

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The song, ‘Map of the Problematique’ is a reference to a line in the 1972 book, ‘The Limits to Growth’ which was based on information compiled from a specially designed computer simulation that assessed the interaction between the planet’s population, industrial growth, food production and limits on Earth’s eco-systems. According to it’s estimations, world economic growth could not continue indefinitely due to the limited availability of natural resources. The ambitious project was instigated by the global think-tank, ‘The Club of Rome’ which was formed in 1968 and includes former and current Prime Ministers and Presidents, royalty, economists, professors, scientists, environmentalists, university lecturers, and heads of charities among it’s membership. In summarising the findings of ‘The Limits to Growth,’ the ‘Club of Rome’ official website states that “most scenarios resulted in an ongoing growth of population and the economy until to a turning point around 2030. Only drastic measures for environmental protection proved to be suitable to change this systems behaviour, and only under these circumstances, scenarios could be calculated in which both world population and wealth could remain at a constant level.” Although ’The Limits to Growth’ is updated periodically to cater for unexpected changes in world trends, many critics claim it’s estimations are flawed and unrealistic. For example, although agreeing with the view that continued growth should not continue, Yale University economist, Henry C. Wallich prefers a natural end instead of intervention. He warns that a premature and artificial kerbing of growth would be “consigning billions to permanent poverty.”

A major concern for many within the so-called ‘Alternative movement’ is that ‘The Limits to Growth’ is part of a systematic, secretive plot by the Club of Rome to cull the world’s population in preparation for and in keeping with the aims of building a New World dictatorship in which fewer people will be required to exist. According to a March 1981 article in the news-magazine, ’Executive Intelligence Review,’ there was a planning apparatus during that period “operating outside the control of the White House whose sole purpose” was “to reduce the world’s population by 2 billion people through war, famine, disease and any other means necessary” and was “determining US foreign policy” via “various levels of the government. The targeting agency for the operation is the National Security Council’s Ad Hoc Group on Population Policy. Its policy-planning group is in the U.S. State Department’s Office of Population Affairs (OPA), established in 1975 by Henry Kissinger. This group drafted the Carter administration’s ‘Global 2000’ document, which calls for global population reduction.” It then goes on to quote Thomas Ferguson, the Latin American case-officer for OPA who says, “there is a single theme behind all our work – we must reduce population levels. Either they (governments) do it our way, through nice clean methods or they will get the kind of mess that we have in El Salvador, or in Iran, or in Beirut. Population is a political problem. Once population is out of control it requires authoritarian government, even fascism, to reduce it. The quickest way to reduce population is through famine, like in Africa or through disease like the Black Death.” According to the researcher and author David Allen Rivera, the aforementioned ‘Global 2000’ report “attempted to project global economic trends for the next twenty years, and indicated that the resources of the planet were not sufficient enough to support the expect dramatic increase in the world population. The report called for the population of the US to be reduced by 100 million people by the year 2050.” Rivera then goes on to quote Howard T. Odum a marine biologist and Club of Rome member who publicly stated in 1980 that, “it is necessary that the United States cut its population by two-thirds within the next 50 years.” Rivera continues, “about six months later, the Council on Environmental Quality made recommendations based on the Report, called ‘Global Future: A Time to Act.’ They suggested an aggressive program of population control which included sterilisation, contraception and abortion. In August 1982, the Executive Intelligence Review published a report called ‘Global 2000: Blueprint for Genocide’ which said that the two aforementioned Presidential reports: ‘…are correctly understood as political statements of intent – the intent on the part of such policy centres as the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, and the International Monetary Fund, to pursue policies that will result not only in the death of the 120 million cited in the reports, but in the death of upwards of two billion people by the year 2000.’ On September 17th 1973, they (the Club of Rome) released a Report called the ‘Regionalised and Adaptive Model of the Global World System’… This revealed the Club’s goal of dividing the world into ten political/economic regions… which would unite the entire world under a single form of government. These regions are: North America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Japan, Rest of Developed World, Latin America, Middle East, Rest of Africa, South and Southeast Asia, and China. The same plan was published in a Club of Rome book called ‘Mankind at the Turning Point‘, which said: ‘The solution of these crises can be developed only in a global context with full and explicit recognition of the emerging world system and on a long-term basis. This would necessitate, among other changes, a new world economic order and a global resources allocation system…’” Many researchers and scholars believe the ‘Global Warming/Climate Change’ debate is central to this and is based on calculated lies which are designed to implement a deceptive reduction in the population via various means including social engineering. A chilling example of this resides within the pages of the Club of Rome’s very own literature. In 1993 it published ’The First Global Revolution.’ It states that divided nations need “new enemies” whether “a real one or else one invented for purpose.” It continues, “in searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of Global Warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill… All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.” In his 1994 article, ‘The Club of Rome and Population Reduction,’ David Allen Rivera lifts a quote from the 1976 book, ‘Ceremony of the Innocent’ by Taylor Caldwell in order to explain the reasoning behind such ideas: “There will be no peace in the tormented world, only a programmed and systematic series of wars and calamities – until the plotters have gained their objective: an exhausted world willing to submit to a planned Marxist economy and total and meek enslavement – in the name of peace.”

It’s unclear whether Bellamy was aware of any of the above claims whilst he was writing and recording ’Map of the Problematique.’ Judging by comments made in the press in 2007 it would appear that if he was, then he was not in agreement with the majority of it, or had modified his initial views following it‘s release. For as odd as it might seem, and despite his support of the generally-accepted ’Alternative’ notion that the World Stage of politics and policy is one big illusion of lies and deception, he made an exception when it came to the Global Warming / Climate Change issue. During an interview with ‘Uncut’ magazine that year, he was asked whether he was concerned about his so-called “Carbon Footprint,” to which he replied, “yes, definitely. It’s something we’re starting to be more and more concerned about. In fact, we’re on the fence about doing this 7/7/7 climate gig that Al Gore is organising… We’ve been asked to play and a few other bands have, but the only way we can get to it, because we’ve got gigs that night, is by private plane. It just seems contradictory.” The Al Gore “gig” he was referring to was of course the star-studded ‘Live Earth’ concert in July 2007 with a line-up that included Madonna, Foo Fighters, Metallica, Genesis and Bon Jovi. Bellamy criticised the apparent hypocrisy of the event on a BBC radio show in April of that year saying, “private jets for Climate Change, not sure about it, that seems to be a bit on edge really.” Muse did not appear.

‘Black Holes and Revelations’ was a culmination. A crystallised representation of specific ideas that Matt Bellamy had either explored briefly in songs and in music-videos, or had read about and/or reflected upon in previous years. Politics, war, corruption, environmental issues, and Global Warming all converged into one cohesive message (regardless of whether this was the intention or not). Even his fascination for subjects pertaining to outer-space, the universe, and the possibility of extra-terrestrial life merged comfortably into the general theme of the album. One such song is ‘Exo-Politics,’ a term used to describe the view held by a number of scholars, researchers and scientists that extraterrestrial beings are secretly engaging with Earth’s military, governments and political systems. Alfred Webre is a lawyer and author often dubbed the “Father of Exo-Politics.“ During Jimmy Carter’s term as US President, he worked as the principal investigator of a Whitehouse/Pentagon-backed civilian scientific study of extraterrestrial communication. After years of researching data collected on UFOs as well as the evidence of air-traffic controllers, military and Intelligence, he concludes that many of the unidentified flying objects witnessed across the world over the decades do not originate from this planet. He also believes that Planet Earth exists in a populated and highly organised and evolved inter-planetary, inter-galactic, multi-dimensional universe but that it has been quarantined for aeons by a “Universe Government.” In his book, ’Exo-Politics; A Decade of Contact,’ he writes that “the specific conditions of our planetary isolation are contained in legislative statutes, executive regulations, and judicial case decisions of Universe Government. Our emerging from planetary quarantine is as much dictated by Universe Government, as was our original isolation.“ Webre has suggested that Humanity can help lift this quarantine by introducing an absolute ban on warfare and weapons “in a jurisdiction ruled by the standards of a common Universe Government.” In an interview with ’Uncut’ magazine in 2006, Matt Bellamy said the song ’Exo-Politics’ “is about a trade agreement between the US government and extraterrestrials, about the use of new technologies. Many people believe that a large part of the contemporary techniques came from a different world. I’m not sure about that, but it is certainly interesting.”
Otherworldly themes were also explored in the six-minute epic, ‘Knights of Cydonia.’ Matt told ‘NME’ in 2007 that it was named after “the Cydonia Mensae region of Mars in the planet’s Northern hemisphere. Certain planetologists believe it was once a coastal zone, implying there was water there – and also possibly, life.” Much speculation has been directed towards an image of the region taken by the ‘Viking 1’ orbiter in 1976 because it shows a hill that resembles the shape of a human face complete with what looks like a pair of eyes, a nose and a mouth.

The Cydonia ‘moon face’ photo

The ‘Viking’ team dismissed this at the time as merely an “illusion” formed by “shadows.” Images taken of the formation since have apparently confirmed this. However, a number of researchers believe NASA has been manipulating the pictures in order to deceive the public into accepting it‘s earlier “illusion“ claims. One such person is the well-known American author, Richard C. Hoagland who argues the structure is part of a city of pyramids and mounds arranged in a geometric pattern. Bellamy elaborated on this during an interview with the ‘NME’ in 2006. He said, “where it gets interesting is that there are people out there now who are realising that the whole pyramid area in North Africa, not just the Giza area, is one enormous, very in-depth star map if you look at it from above. They’re trying to lay out some kind of message to someone who’s in the sky. The same layout has been found on Mars, on Cydonia, and someone has linked them all together. And if you look at Washington from above it’s exactly the same as the pyramids, the way they’re laid out. There’s a whole lot of secrecy out there about some of the monuments that are on Earth and also things that might be, which I hope will be, on Cydonia on Mars.”

The pyramids of Giza aligned with the stars.

In 2006, he told ‘Rock Sound’ magazine, “’Knights of Cydonia’ is based on the idea that millions of years ago, there was a complete civilisation that lived there. Then Venus came into the solar system as an enormous comet, sucking all the oceans away from Mars, destroying the civilisation and going into orbit around our sun. But, anyway, Knights of Cydonia is this fantasy that there were a bunch of knights, with phasers or whatever, fighting to the last moments when Venus came by and sucked the oceans away. It’s the idea that there’s something deep down within us, the human spirit if you want to call it that, that cannot be manipulated and is aware of what’s going on and will do everything in its power to fight it.” Muse bassist Chris Wolstenholme told ‘Rip It Up’ magazine in 2007 that the song is “influenced by bands like the Tornados, a lot of late’50s, early ‘60s stuff. That was the original approach to that track.” The Tornados were the first British band to reach Number 1 in the US singles chart, a feat they achieved in 1962 with the instrumental, ‘Telstar,’ which was named after a communications satellite that was launched into orbit that very same year. The quirky outer-space / sci-fi-like sound that dominates throughout the track was accomplished with the aid of an electronic keyboard instrument called a Clavioline, a forerunner to the synthesiser. ‘Telstar’ is of specific interest to Matt because his father, George Bellamy played rhythm guitar in the Tornados. The Muse front-man discussed this during an interview with the ‘LA Times’ in 2007, and in particular, the influence ‘Telstar’ had on ‘Knights of Cydonia.’ He said, “I wanted to do something that was a bit of reference toward that because I never really paid attention to any of that music when I was growing up.”

The Tornados.Matt’s father, George (far right).

In an interview with ’Jmag’ that same year, Matt credited his father and the Tornados with indirectly shaping the Muse sound claiming that, “dad introduced me to music when I was very young, and played me a lot of ’50s and ’60s records that I probably would never have heard of if it wasn’t for him. I definitely got that more sci-fi… well, not sci-fi, but I guess what people like to call the more ‘spacey’ sound from his band. For the ’50s it did sound very futuristic, and very kind of spacey, so that
element of the band definitely came from him.”

‘Telstar’ was produced by the legendary but notorious hit-maker Joe Meek at his self-built home-studio which was situated in a three-floor flat above a leather-goods store in Holloway Road, North London. The cramped conditions meant that his artists were forced to record in various sections of the building at any given time including the bathroom. Sometimes, they even had to contend with the angry landlady downstairs who’d complain about the noise and bang her ceiling with a broomstick. Nevertheless, some of the biggest hits of the early 1960s were created there, most notably Johnny Leyton’s 1961 UK chart-topper, ’Johnny Remember Me,’ The Honeycombs’ 1964 UK and US smash, ‘Have I The Right?,’ and The Tornados‘ ‘Telstar‘ of course. Matt Bellamy says, “my dad told me loads of stories about working with him. He was a complete psycho. He was really schizoid and really moody, often quite violent with my dad’s band too. Apparently one time he threw a massive tape machine at them while they were running down the stairs, it hit the bass player and knocked him out.”

Joe Meek

The temperamental producer also actively pursued an interest in the occult and regularly held séances. In the 1991 BBC documentary, ‘The Strange Story of Joe Meek,‘ composer Geoff Goddard claims the two of them summoned up the spirit of Buddy Holly, a musician they both had an obsession with. They asked him if ‘Johnny Remember Me’ would be a hit, to which the dead Rock & Roller is said to have replied that it would be a Number 1. The song was written by Goddard, just one of many that he penned for the eccentric Pop pioneer’s stable of Holloway Road artists, including the Tornados. He also played keyboards on ’Telstar.’ Jerry Bloom, the author of ’Black Knight,’ writes that both men were responsible for introducing Ritchie Blackmore to the occult in the 1960s whilst he was a member of Meek’s in-house studio band, The Outlaws. In later years of course, he found fame with the groups Deep Purple and Rainbow, and was repeatedly accused of being a Satanist, thanks to his well-documented, self-proclaimed interest in the paranormal and esotericism. In Dave Thompson’s book, ’Smoke on the Water: The Deep Purple Story,’ Geoff Goddard recalls Blackmore and his wife Margaret attending séances with Meek and claims “the three of them were fascinated by the occult.” It’s also said that Joe developed an obsession with Aleister Crowley and had tried to communicate with the long deceased master of magick. According to Thompson’s book, Margaret “later spoke candidly of Meek’s fears that he was being stalked by the spirit” of Crowley.

Geoff Goddard pictured in 1963.

Goddard believes the producer’s life began to take a turn for the worse when his homosexuality (illegal in the UK at the time) became widespread public knowledge in the wake of his 1963 conviction for “importuning for an immoral purpose.” This humiliating incident occurred at a time when gay men were in danger of falling prey to blackmailers who threatened to expose their secret, criminal lifestyles to their families, work colleagues, and the police. Meek’s recording engineer, Patrick Pink told the BBC in 1991 that Joe “was frightened to face the world after that for quite a long time. He visualised: ‘I’m ruined. This is gonna ruin me. Everybody now is gonna know I’m queer and cut me off.’ Secondly, he was terrified that his family would find out… you know, if his mother ever got wind of this, he would be finished – I think – mentally.” In January 1967, police discovered a suitcase in a field in Suffolk which contained the dissected body of 17-year-old Bernard Oliver who‘d gone missing after leaving his home some days earlier. The teenager, who suffered from learning disabilities, was sexually assaulted before being strangled to death. It’s said Meek feared he would be implicated in the teenager’s murder after hearing that police were planning to interview all known homosexual men in London. Interestingly, a renowned writer who’s researched Meek‘s life, claims the ‘Telstar’ producer was in fact quizzed in connection with the killing. Jake Arnott is the author of the fictional novel, ‘The Long Firm,’ which was later adapted into a BAFTA-winning BBC drama serial. The story is set in the 1960s and centres around a homosexual East-End gangster by the name of Harry Starks. In a 2009 article titled ‘Joe Meek and Me,’ Arnott describes how his story charts the protagonist’s life “against a background of real events and real people” including the infamous Kray Twins. He writes, “the criminalisation of homosexuality created an underworld of suspicion and blackmail. Gay gangsters like Ronnie Kray used this intensely secretive atmosphere to further their own dubious activities and to cultivate friends in high places. So the ’suitcase murder’ became part of it’s story and Joe Meek one of it’s characters.” There have also been claims that Bernard Oliver knew Meek and had briefly worked at his Holloway Road studio, which was based just a couple of miles from the Muswell Hill area of London where Oliver lived right up until his murder. No one has ever been charged in connection with his killing.

Towards the mid-to-late ‘60s, Joe’s run of hit records began to dry up. His failure to move in step with and/or adapt to the continually changing musical trends of the decade is regarded by some commentators to have contributed to the decline in his fortunes. On February 3rd 1967 – the eighth anniversary of Buddy Holly’s death (and less than a month after the discovery of Bernard Oliver’s body) – Joe Meek shot and killed his landlady and then himself with a single-barrelled shotgun during a brief altercation in his flat. The weapon belonged to one of his singers who was also a keen game-hunter, the former Tornados bass-player, Heinz Burt. The musician was actually a lodger at Holloway Road for a brief time but eventually left when his relationship with Meek began to deteriorate. It’s claimed the two were lovers, although Burt’s wife at the time, Della Burke, has denied this publicly.

Heinz Burt.

Speaking to the BBC in 1991, Heinz explained how his gun ended up in Joe’s hands on that fateful day. He said, ““I used to go shooting a lot because of the pressure of working obviously – gigs. I used to travel. I had a break-down shotgun that you broke down into bits, fitted in the case – used to have it in the car… and I’d be travelling and I’d stop off at a farm, knock at a farm door and say, ’would you mind if I do a bit of shooting?’ Because that was my relaxation and I used to go out and shoot a few pigeons and rabbits. And I didn’t like to leave it in the car. So I’d have recording sessions, so I took it out of the car – left the shotgun and the cartridges in the studio. Of course I’d forgot about them. That was after I moved out of there.” A couple of weeks later, Burt claims he stormed out of Meek’s studio after the producer had threatened to end his career in the music business during an argument over royalty payments. Although the singer wasn’t in the building when the shooting occurred, the gun was registered in his name and subsequently led to him being questioned – and cleared – by police.

Heinz had left the Tornados in 1963 to pursue a solo career under Meek’s supervision. In fact, by 1967, none of the original members of the band remained, George Bellamy included. His son, Matt told ’Kerrang!’ in 2006, “in the ‘50s he sold millions of records… and even toured with The Beatles, but he never made any money. The business was pretty dodgy back then. He ended up working as a builder.” The Muse singer’s mother, Marilyn met George in London whilst he was taxi-driving. They later moved to Cambridge where their future Rock-star son and his older brother Paul were born, and then on to Teignmouth. It was there that a 10-year-old Matt wandered downstairs late one evening to discover his father, mother and brother engaging in an activity that would have been very familiar to the likes of George’s former friends and colleagues in London such as Joe Meek, Geoff Goddard and Ritchie Blackmore. According to an article in the 2002 edition of ‘Kerrang!’ Matt saw his family “focused around a Ouija board. Instead of shrieking at her son to get out of the room, Marilyn Bellamy instead chose to sit Matt down and explain what it was his family were doing. She also explained to him that this was nothing to be afraid of, no matter what anyone might think or say.” Eventually, the youngest member of the Bellamy clan was actively taking part in the proceedings and, again, according to ‘Kerrang!’, “was on regular book runs down to the local library, in an attempt to read every text he could on this area of the occult. The intention, he says, was to ‘push’ their mother into becoming a medium, a talent Marilyn Bellamy was beginning to show a propensity toward. ‘It wasn’t that my mum was necessarily reluctant to take that step,’ he says. ‘It’s just that she was reluctant to do it in front of me and my brother. I actually do think that she was very able to do it, it’s just that she could see that me and my brother were becoming unnaturally keen. I mean I was only very young at the time. So she knocked it on the head.’“ Bellamy then went on to say, “my beliefs in the whole thing changed. I now believe that you’re contacting something in your subconscious, which is quite different. Something that you might not have known was already there. That’s probably more realistic than thinking you’re contacting someone who’s already dead. And I do practice that.’“

Matt’s parents divorced when he was still in his early teens, and the youngster turned to the guitar to deal with his father’s sudden exit from the family unit. In a 2006 interview the Muse front-man recalled that, “my dad was a big record collector and there were always guitars and pianos in the house.“ George eventually left Teignmouth and moved to Exeter before finally retiring to Alicante, Spain. The break-up of his marriage occurred just a few short years after the suspicious death of his brother who was a British soldier serving in Northern Ireland. David Bellamy was shot dead outside an RUC station in West Belfast in October 1979. The newspapers at the time reported that he’d been taken down in an IRA ambush, but in 2007 Matt claimed that “no one was ever arrested and IRA involvement was never properly established.” In 2010 he said, “from what I know, he was working undercover, and afterwards it was revealed he was in the SAS. It was very suspicious. He was machine-gunned 80 times. It was a statement. It’s definitely something that had an influence on me. That’s what got me interested in things like false-flag operations. What goes on would shock most people.”

The release of ‘Black Holes and Revelations’ in July 2006 was followed by a series of articles and interviews in the media in which Bellamy expanded further on the themes and ideas that inspired the album. He told ‘Uncut’ magazine, “I’ve always been interested in conspiracy theories. There is much information withheld from the people for sure – including myself – so I’m not saying that I know about them. I’ve read much about it prior to the album production. Some things are just b******s, other things are quite interesting. I like this narrow line. Many songs on the album deal with conspiracy theories or the formation of a world government… Other songs are about control and how the media is purposely influencing and trying to keep us off from the truth. Methods that keep people off from questioning things and issues. Inventions and technologies bottled up in order to being able to use them later in the military. I’m interested in all this, and it influenced the album.” He told ‘Kerrang!’ that same year, “the schooling system we have in the Western world is crazy – you’re taken away from your parents at your most impressionable age and fed a load of bull-sh*t and lies manipulated to make you think that the way we live in the West is stable and moral, when really it’s neither. You come out of school with a one-track mind based on financial success, you’re encouraged to become enslaved to the banking system. In school, I always felt, ‘something’s not right here’ and I’m starting to find out what it is.” He was also sharing it with any one who‘d care to take notice. In August, Matt performed with Muse at the Reading Festival whilst wearing a T-shirt with the words “Terror Storm” scrawled across it. When baffled journalists asked him the meaning behind it, he said, “go to ’Google Video,’ type in ’Terror Storm’ and you’ll find a nice little surprise. It will shed some light on world affairs, put it that way. I’d rather point you in the right direction than preach about it myself.”

Matt in his ‘TerrorStorm’ T-shirt.

He was referring to the controversial documentary, ’TerrorStorm: A History of Government-Sponsored Terrorism,’ produced by well-known American ‘Alternative’ radio-host, Alex Jones. Buoyed by Bellamy’s public support, the broadcaster invited the singer onto his show in September 2006 whilst Muse were preparing to play at a live date in Texas. During the brief telephone exchange, they discussed 9/11 and other alleged false-flag operations, as well as the ongoing tensions between Iran and the West, his uncle’s death, and the reaction of Muse fans to Matt’s outspoken views on world affairs. They also agreed to arrange a date for a future radio-interview in order to expand further on these themes. The planned conversation never took place.

Matt’s media onslaught continued.
In October he told ‘Kerrang!’, “very soon we’ll be encouraged to be micro-chipped, the ID cards are just the first step towards that. These things are already happening and most people are happy to just chill out and not think about it. The differential between the bubble we live in – which is ‘ordinary life’ – and the reality out there is almost as heavy as what is being depicted in a film like ‘The Matrix’. It could make you puke to make that step towards finding out what’s really going on. Most people want to avoid looking into it and those people will point at the stray sheep outside and say ‘he’s crazy’ or ‘he’s psycho’ – even though the evidence is all there to be seen. False-flag operations have been going on time and time again in our history: there was a document called ‘Project for the New American Century’, which was made by neo-Con writers in the ’90s who supplied most of the agenda that (President) Bush is putting into place now, which says clearly, ‘we need a Pearl-Harbour-level event so we have an excuse to invade the Middle East’… Everything that we’re living through is as a result of what happened on 9/11, so it’s fundamental to our history to make sure we know what happened.” When Muse chatted to the ‘NME’ that same year, the magazine published the exchange under the dramatic headline, ‘”Let’s Burn Down the Houses of Parliament!”’ This was lifted directly from comments Matt had made during the interview. He’d said, “we’re born into this bondage, this system. It’s pleasant, it’s a nice world, but put it this way: the vote we all get is useless. The concept of democracy is a f*****g joke. Rock’s supposed to shake things up and say, ‘f**k that, this is s**t, man! Let’s burn down the Houses of Parliament!” Regarding the 9/11 attacks, he said, “there’s never been any hard evidence that ties any of the usual suspects with this. In fact, the evidence they did use was laughable. The plane’s black box that keeps all the information… that melted. But apparently a passport with one of the hijacker’s names flew out of the window and landed on the ground. That’s laughable. I’m not saying that it wasn’t an attack on the United States – it was, there’s no question about that. The question is who was the attack done by and for what reason? I think there’s far more to suggest that a select amount of people who are reaping vast benefits from the (Iraq) war that’s taking place at the moment… they’ve got the means and the motive to try to pull something like that off. We’ve got to be careful we don’t let these people make mugs of us.”

When assessing this particular period in the life and times of Muse, it’s perhaps safe to conclude that it was a welcome burst of music-to-the-ears for so-called ‘Truth Seekers’ (quite literally in fact)? After all, here was a band that was enjoying it’s biggest success to date with ‘Black Holes and Revelations,’ an album which was a Top Ten hit in at least fifteen countries, including America – a territory which has always been a much-prized goal of any band or artist seeking worldwide attention. In short, Muse were in a perfect position to highlight suppressed fringe issues and information to a global, mainstream audience.

‘Black Holes and Revelations.’

So far, Matt Bellamy’s thoughts and theories have taken precedence over those of his fellow band-mates in this ‘Conspiro Media’ article. It’s hardly surprising. Not only is he the principle song-writer and lyricist, but the most outspoken member whose views on world affairs and the Grand Conspiracy are of relevance to this website. In 2006, ‘Alternative Press’ asked bass-player Chris Wolstenholme whether he shared Bellamy’s outlook. He said, “I think that stuff is something that intrigues everyone – feeling like you’re not being told the truth by the government – I don’t think that makes us any different than anyone else.” Drummer, Dominic Howard went a few steps further in 2007 when he told the UK’s ‘Daily Mail,’ “most of Matt’s theories are totally valid. If you watch any of the documentaries about 9/11, you’re left in no doubt that those were controlled explosions and that the whole thing was meticulously planned by the American Government.” In 2009, the ‘NME’ asked Chris whether he was ever inclined to interfere with Matt’s vision, he answered, “with all the lyrics and stuff, me and Dom don’t really get involved. Usually the first time I hear lyrics is when Matt comes in and says, ‘are you ready to do the backing vocals?’ But it’s not really something me and Dom have ever got involved in, ‘cos it’s quite a personal thing and it’s the one thing I feel like no-one else has got the right to comment on. When it comes to guitar parts, bass parts, drum parts, then everyone’s very open to putting forward ideas as to how we should be playing things, but when it comes to lyrics it’s a totally different thing altogether and it’s something I’ve always left Matt to.”

When Muse embarked on a world concert tour in 2006 to support the ’Black Holes and Revelations’ album, they showcased a stage-set design based on the controversial HAARP installation in Alaska. Matt talked about this at some length with the ‘NME.’ He said, “this HAARP thing (which stands for, ’High-frequency Active Auroral Program’), the government are saying it’s for communications with submarines and their own spacecraft, but scientists have said that they’re really trying to tap into the ionosphere, where a lot of weather stuff takes place. Interfere with that and you can manipulate the weather. No-one really knows what it is but modern warfare and modern weapons have moved into this next stage. There’s a big battle going on as to who’ll control the weather.” According to the official HAARP website, the program is a “world-class ionospheric research facility” and consists of “the Ionospheric Research Instrument (IRI), a high-power transmitter facility operating in the High Frequency (HF) range. The IRI will be used to temporarily excite a limited area of the ionosphere for scientific study,” and “a sophisticated suite of scientific (or diagnostic) instruments that will be used to observe the physical processes that occur in the excited region.” It goes on to state that, “scientific instruments installed at the HAARP observatory will be useful for a variety of continuing research efforts which do not involve the use of IRI but are strictly passive. Among these studies include… documentation of the long-term variations in the ozone-layer.” The website then goes on to state that HAARP studies the effects of HF communications systems such as ship-to-shore communications and transoceanic aircraft links which operate by bouncing signals off the ionosphere. One of the project’s aims in this respect, is to “provide the fundamental understanding necessary to enhance the performance of such systems.” The website also claims that it investigates radio signals that operate at much higher frequencies and which pass through the ionosphere, such the space-based GPS navigation system satellites which, of course, are not only used for military purposes, but civilian technology including car ‘sat-navs,’ cell-phones and laptop computers.
Critics of the installation claim it’s being used for malevolent purposes such as the triggering of earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, and power-cuts. One of the leading lights among those supporting this view is author and lecturer, Dr. Nick Begich, the author of the book, ‘Angels Don’t Play This HAARP’ and the eldest son of the late US Alaska congressman, Nick Begich Sr. According to his extensive research, Begich Jnr. claims the installation has the power and potential not only to change and control the weather, but also to jam communications systems on land and in the air, and manipulate and disrupt human mental processes – or in other words, to control the minds of the masses with the aid of ‘pulsed radio-frequency radiation.’ When the European Parliament held hearings in 1998 to probe into HAARP, Begich appeared as an expert witness. Representatives from NATO and the US administration were also invited to attend, but chose not to do so. An official European Parliament document from that period states that, “HAARP can be used for many purposes. Enormous quantities of energy can be controlled by manipulating the electrical characteristics of the atmosphere. If used as a military weapon this can have a devastating impact on an enemy. HAARP can deliver millions of times more energy to a given area than any other conventional transmitter. The energy can also be aimed at a moving target which should constitute a potential anti-missile system. The project would also allow better communications with submarines and manipulation of global weather patterns, but it is also possible to do the reverse, to disrupt communications. By manipulating the ionosphere one could block global communications while transmitting one’s own. Another damaging consequence of HAARP is the occurrence of holes in the ionosphere caused by the powerful radio beams. The ionosphere protects us from incoming cosmic radiation. The hope is that the holes will fill again, but our experience of change in the ozone layer points in the other direction. This means substantial holes in the ionosphere that protects us. HAARP is a project of which the public is almost completely unaware, and this needs to be remedied.” In the European Parliament’s motion for a resolution it stated that it, “considers HAARP by virtue of it’s far-reaching impact on the environment to be a global concern and calls for it’s legal, ecological, and ethical implications to be examined by an independent body before any further research and testing.” It also “requests the Scientific and Technological Options Assessment (STOA) Panel to agree to examine the scientific and technical evidence provided in all existing research findings on HAARP to assess the exact nature and degree of risk that HAARP poses both to the local and global environment and to public health generally.” Despite these efforts, a bid to draw up a Green Paper to investigate the environmental impacts of military activities such as HAARP was dismissed by the European Commission in 1999 on the grounds that the EU lacked the jurisdiction to investigate within an area that was – in it’s own words – “the sole preserve of national authorities.” An article by author and Professor of Economics at University of Ottowa, Michel Chossudovsky, perhaps best encapsulates the fears and concerns of many of HAARP’s critics. He writes, “HAARP could potentially be applied by the US military to selectively modify the climate of an ‘unfriendly nation’ or ‘rogue state’ with a view to destabilising its national economy. Agricultural systems in both developed and developing countries are already in crisis as a result of New World Order policies including market deregulation, commodity dumping, etc. Amply documented, IMF and World Bank ‘economic medicine’ imposed on the Third World and the countries of the former Soviet block has largely contributed to the destabilisation of domestic agriculture. In turn, the provisions of the World Trade Organization (WTO) have supported the interests of a handful of Western agri-biotech conglomerates in their quest to impose genetically modified (GMO) seeds on farmers throughout the World. It is important to understand the linkage between the economic, strategic and military processes of the New World Order. In the above context, climatic manipulations under the HAARP program (whether accidental or deliberate) would inevitably exacerbate these changes by weakening national economies, destroying infrastructure and potentially triggering the bankruptcy of farmers over vast areas. Surely national governments and the United Nations should address the possible consequences of HAARP and other ‘non-lethal weapons’ on climate change.”

On the left, the notorious HAARP installation in Alaska. On the right, Muse with their interpretation.

When Muse released a live CD/DVD of their 2007 concert appearances at the then-newly built Wembley Stadium in London, they titled it, ’HAARP,’ as inspired by the stage-set design which was based on the controversial installation.

Shortly after completing their 27-month world tour in August 2008, Muse re-entered the studio to record a follow-up to the hugely successful ‘Black Holes and Revelations.’ When Matt talked to the ‘NME’ about the new album in 2009, he referenced a number of notable events that were taking place whilst it was being recorded including the global banking and financial crisis (which sadly, continues to this day), and the UK MPs’ expenses scandal which was initially exposed to the public by the British newspaper, ’The Daily Telegraph’ in 2009. An unprecedented number of politicians were forced to resign in the wake of the revelations which concluded that they had misused allowances and expenses which they were entitled to claim. Many of those implicated were then-serving ministers in Gordon Brown’s Labour government. They later stood down from their posts, although the scandal reached across all Party divides and into the House of Lords. Prosecutions followed, and a number of MPs and a Lord were later jailed for false accounting. Among the wide array of accusations that poured into the public domain during this time included details of politicians claiming for businesses and flats of residence that never existed, and others making false expense claims for stationery-bills totalling tens of thousands of pounds as well as home renovations and furniture purchases. Reports also emerged of an MP who used fake tenancy agreements to claim rent for a flat in Westminster that he actually owned. Other notable allegations included those centring around Conservative MP Douglas Hogg who was said to have used tax-payers’ money to meet the cost of a full-time housekeeper, and expenses for work on his stables, the clearing of his moat at his country estate, and even the tuning of his piano. Another Tory MP was reported to have claimed nearly £90,000 for expenses incurred during work on the grounds of his mansion, including rabbit fencing, tree surgery and inspection, and woodland consultants. The then-Home Secretary Jacqui Smith was subjected to notable derision at the time after it transpired that her husband Richard Timney had claimed reimbursement for two pay-per-view pornographic films whilst running her constituency office. Smith later resigned from her cabinet post and apologised for further breaches of expenses rules in relation to parliamentary allowances that she used to pay for the running of a second home. Matt Bellamy told the ‘NME,’ “there’s definitely a feeling of wanting change in England, of how everything’s just going old-fashioned. That was all going off in the making of this album. I think in England itself people are have woken up to the fact that we don’t have a democracy anymore and our parliamentary system is completely out of date and the news media is particularly screwed. Having lived in England for the past five or ten years has been quite an experience because we feel like we are totally powerless; I have noticed it more so than other countries. The whole banking crisis has been very bad in England, and the whole MP thing, and also that we’ve been taken to a war that we don’t agree with on the coat-tails of the USA. There’s a feeling about being English in the past few years of, ‘f*****g hell, we don’t have any control over our lives’. Watching the news has been a major influence on this album. You know, just brainwashing myself with BBC news, and also realising how much brainwashing is actually coming out of that stuff.” Bellamy had regularly spoken out against the role of the media in a number of interviews during this time-period. In 2008 he told ’State’ magazine, “I did an A Level in Media and I think that got me interested in the amount of power the media has. Later in life, you learn to what extent the media is controlled and used by other parties, for other reasons. As soon as anyone becomes aware of that kind of thing, you start to see how the general public tend to sometimes get moved around or manipulated and turned into certain things that are simply for the benefit of some corporation or some government, which is making the media do something that’s for their gain.”

The new Muse album was released in September 2009. Titled, ‘The Resistance,’ it features their anthemic classic, ‘Uprising.’ Matt has reportedly said the song is based on the 2004 book ‘Confessions of an Economic Hit Man’ which documents the experiences of it’s author John Perkins who claims he was employed by a private consultancy firm via the intelligence organisation, the ‘National Security Agency’ (NSA) to help the US cheat under-developed countries out of trillions of dollars by effectively forcing them to accept huge loans that they had little or no chance of ever paying back from institutions such as the World Bank and various aid organisations. Once saddled with this debt, the United States would take over their economies and also force them to acquiesce to their political pressure. Speaking in a US TV interview for the news programme ‘Democracy Now!’ in 2004, Perkins said, “basically what we were trained to do and what our job is to do is to build up the American empire. To bring – to create situations where as many resources as possible flow into this country, to our corporations, and our government, and in fact we’ve been very successful.” Perkins claims that Iraq’s Saddam Hussein was a rare exception because he refused to bow to the pressure. He said, “when the economic hit men fail in this scenario, the next step is what we call the jackals. Jackals are CIA-sanctioned people that come in and try to foment a coup or revolution. If that doesn’t work, they perform assassinations. Or try to. In the case of Iraq, they weren’t able to get through to Saddam Hussein. He had – his bodyguards were too good. He had doubles. They couldn’t get through to him. So the third line of defence, if the economic hit men and the jackals fail, the next line of defence is our young men and women, who are sent in to die and kill, which is what we’ve obviously done in Iraq.”

John Perkins.

Perkins claims he was recruited by the NSA whilst still at business school in the late 1960s. He told ‘Democracy Now!’, “the first real economic hit man was back in the early 1950s, Kermit Roosevelt, the grandson of Teddy, who overthrew the government of Iran, a democratically elected government, Mossadegh’s government… and he was so successful at doing this without any bloodshed – well, there was a little bloodshed, but no military intervention, just spending millions of dollars and replaced Mossadegh with the Shah of Iran. At that point, we understood that this idea of economic hit man was an extremely good one. We didn’t have to worry about the threat of war with Russia when we did it this way. The problem with that was that (President) Roosevelt was a CIA agent. He was a government employee. Had he been caught, we would have been in a lot of trouble. It would have been very embarrassing. So, at that point, the decision was made to use organisations like the CIA and the NSA to recruit potential economic hit men like me and then send us to work for private consulting companies, engineering firms, construction companies, so that if we were caught, there would be no connection with the government.”
Chris Wolstenholme told ‘FHM’ magazine just a month after the release of ‘The Resistance’ album that ‘Uprising’ was “about having a massive mistrust for people in power, whether it be government, or bankers. We’re living in a society where we’re being told to keep quiet, to just accept things as they are.” Matt talked about the song with ’Mojo’ magazine and explained the logic behind the band’s united cries of, “oi!” in the instrumental breaks. He described it as “football-style chanting” which was “meant to be football hooligans chanting in protest at the banking situation.” Although ‘Uprising’ begins by painting a stark, grim picture of a world controlled by an elite which uses every trick and tactic in it’s arsenal to suppress the long-suffering mass population within an existence of lies, corruption, greed and “drugs that keep us all dumbed-down,” it isn’t long before Matt attempts to stir the listener with an emotive, determined call to abandon ill-founded fears and instead embrace a pro-active, defiant bid for emancipation. There’s a positive, and at times, reassuring tone in the song’s message. It’s hardly surprising this song was widely adopted as an unofficial anthem of the Truth Movement.UPRISINGParanoia is in bloom,The PR transmissions will resume,They’ll try to push drugs that keep us all dumbed-down,And hope that we will never see the truth around(So come on)Another promise, another scene,Another packaged lie to keep us trapped in greed,And all the green belts wrapped around our minds,And endless red tape to keep the truth confined(So come on)

They will not force us,They will stop degrading us,They will not control us,We will be victorious(So come on)

Interchanging mind control,Come let the revolution take it’s toll,If you could flick a switch and open your third eye,You’d see thatWe should never be afraid to die(So come on)

Rise up and take the power back,It’s time the fat cats had a heart attack,You know that their time’s coming to an end,We have to unify and watch our flag ascend

They will not force us,They will stop degrading us,They will not control us,We will be victoriousSo come on

They will not force us,They will stop degrading us,They will not control us,We will be victorious

————————————

Whether one should choose to rebel against his or her malevolent masters with violence and destruction or by my more peaceful methods is an age-old dilemma that never fails to spark debate and Bellamy has boldly explored both sides of that opposing spectrum through his music. Earlier works on the ‘Black Holes’ album such as ‘Assassin,’ with the lyrics, “aim, shoot, kill your leaders,” and the track ’The City of Delusion,’ which finds Matt singing, “break these walls down. Avenge, justify my reasons with your blood” are particularly powerful examples of one extreme, whereas ‘Uprising’ is significantly less hostile in it’s call for a united rejection of the power-elite. During an interview with the ‘NME’ in 2009, Matt talked about these two conflicting perspectives and how they both merged together to influence ‘The Resistance’ album. He said, “I think I’ve put forward the idea in the album that love and peaceful protest is ultimately the best way, but you can’t help thinking that sometimes it’s not enough; there’s a fine line, and I’m treading that fine line. You could bury yourself in the idea of your girlfriend or someone you love and forget about everything else, or you could use it as a method of protesting – in the Gandhi sense that peaceful resistance is the best form of resistance. But then there’s the idea that kicking a few shop windows in helps as well! The album is teetering between all those different versions of resistance.’”

‘The Resistance’ album.

According to Chris Wolstenholme, the theme of love is also explored in the title track of the album and “took a lot of influence from ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four.’ Love is one of the last freedoms we have left, so it’s about using love and sex as an act of political freedom.” Matt also referred to the George Orwell novel during an interview with the ‘NME’ in July 2009 when he was asked if ’The Resistance’ was a concept album. He said, “I think if you had to boil it down to one theme, it would be the idea that there’s some sort of romance taking place in this, call it contemporary England, with all the b******s going on everywhere – you just think to yourself, ‘it’s a bunch of b******s isn’t it?’. So if I was in doubt as to where to go with a certain lyric or song I’d go back to those initial thoughts. Like Orwell’s ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four.’ I read the book when I was at school and I only really took in the political side of it, but I read it again and the romance side moved me – this idea that love was the only place where there was some freedom from all the b******s. The act of love can be a political act in those kind of scenarios, as the one place where the state can’t invade your privacy. That love story touched me more than the overall political meaning of the book. So I’d say that was one of the cornerstones of the album, really, the love story in that book.” The dystopian society that Orwell depicts in his 1949 novel is primarily set in the province of ‘Airstrip One,’ formerly known as England and/or Britain. It belongs to the global super-state of Oceania that’s ruled by a dictatorial government called, ‘The Party’ which enforces it’s control over the general population through mass-censorship, propaganda and an omnipresent surveillance-system of hidden microphones and two-way tele-screens that monitor peoples’ everyday movements at home, at work and in public places. Individualism and independent thinking are deemed as “thought crimes” and the populace is forced by any means necessary to love and be loyal to The Party’s leader, ‘Big Brother.’ Even the act of sex is forbidden within certain sections of society, including married couples, unless it’s to reproduce children who can go on to serve the government. It’s amidst this backdrop that the story’s main protagonist, a downtrodden civil servant by the name of Winston Smith, embarks on an illicit love affair with a young woman named, Julia who’s shielded her sexual promiscuity from the authorities by acting as an outspoken propagandist for The Party. The couple, who are forced to make love in various locations away from the open glare of the dreaded tele-screens, know that the day will inevitably come when they will be found, captured and tortured, but they also believe their love for each other will always survive no matter what the authorities inflict upon them. They both later join ’The Brotherhood,’ an underground resistance movement dedicated to overthrowing Big Brother’s dictatorship only to learn that one of it’s members is actually an agent of The Party’s Thought Police who’s been monitoring Winston’s movements for a number of years. The couple are taken by the authorities and delivered to the Ministry of Love which is responsible for maintaining law and order. There, Winston is subjected to months of psychologically draining interrogation and torture in order to re-condition his mind into accepting The Party‘s doctrines. However, despite the brainwashing, Winston’s love for Julia remains. That is until one night when he is taken from his cell to a torture chamber known as ‘Room 101’ where prisoners are subjected to their own worst phobias. There, his fear of rats is put to the test when a cage-full of them are fitted onto his face. In a desperate bid to save himself from the hungry, ferocious rodents, he begs that they be taken off him and placed on Julia instead thus betraying his love for her. Winston is eventually released back into society after accepting the doctrines of The Party and unexpectedly meets Julia whilst walking in the park one day. She too has had her thoughts processed and reconditioned and appears to have suffered a similar ordeal to Winston’s. Each admits betraying the other, and both agree the feelings they once shared are gone. Winston now loves Big Brother.RESISTANCEIs our secret safe tonightAnd are we out of sightWill our world come tumbling down?Will they find our hiding placeIs this our last embraceOr will the world stop caving in?

It could be wrongCould be wrongBut it should’ve been rightIt could be wrongCould be wrongTo let our hearts igniteIt could be wrongCould be wrongAre we digging a holeIt could be wrongCould be wrongThis is out of controlIt could be wrongCould be wrongIt can never lastIt could be wrongCould be wrongMust erase it fastIt could be wrongCould be wrongBut it could’ve been rightIt could be wrong could be

Love is our resistanceThey’ll keep us apart they wont stop breaking us downHold meOur lips must always be sealed

If we live our life in fearI’ll wait a thousand yearsJust to see you smile againKill the prayers for love and peaceYou’ll wake the thought policeWe can’t hide the truth inside

It could be wrongCould be wrongBut it should’ve been rightIt could be wrongCould be wrongTo let our hearts igniteIt could be wrongCould be wrongAre we digging a holeIt could be wrongCould be wrongThis is out of controlIt could be wrongCould be wrongIt can never lastIt could be wrongCould be wrongMust erase it fastIt could be wrongCould be wrongBut it could’ve been rightIt could be wrong could be

Love is our resistanceThey’ll keep us apart they wont stop breaking us downHold meOur lips must always be sealed

The night has reached his endWe can’t pretendWe must runWe must runIt’s time to run

Take us away from hereProtect us from further harmRESISTANCE…

————————————–

Oceania rules over the territories of Australasia, Southern Africa, and the Western Hemisphere. Most of the world’s remaining countries and regions are divided between two other global super-states; they are, Eastasia (which controls the former Indochina region as well as China, Japan, and Korea), and Eurasia (comprised of Continental Europe and Russia). A perpetual state of war exists among the three, and one is always pitted against the other two at any given time. Allegiances change from time to time but Eurasia and Eastasia never side against Oceania. The circumstances that led to this endless cycle of hostility are thought to have been sparked by a global atomic war although details are vague due to The Party’s success in shrouding significant episodes in world history from Oceania’s general population.
An alternative to the official version of events is secretly available within the pages of what is described in the story as, ‘The Book’ which claims the perpetual war can never be won because each state is equally matched in terms of power, even when two are allied against one. It questions the motives behind the ongoing global conflicts stating that there
is no “material need” for them to occur because each of the three superpowers operate within their own self-contained economies in which production and consumption are geared toward one another. Additionally, each state is so vast it can obtain all the necessary materials it might need from it’s very own boundaries. The real purpose of the perpetual war, it claims, is to destroy these materials and deny the general population a high standard of living in the process, thus preventing the majority of humans from becoming too comfortable, and ultimately, more intelligent. This is achieved by gearing industry towards building weapons instead of producing consumer goods that can boost super-states’ economies and quality of life for all.
‘The Book,’ otherwise known as, ‘The Theory and Practise of Oligarchical Collectivism,’ is said to have been written by the head of The Brotherhood, Emmanuel Goldstein. Deemed Public Enemy Number One by The Party, he is repeatedly demonised by the government in daily two-minute broadcasts which are relayed to the population via the two-way tele-screens. In fact, this is the only instance throughout the novel where Goldstein is actually seen or heard. The remainder of the story only refers to him by name or rumour. Even his whereabouts are a mystery. One claim is that he was once a high-ranking member of The Party who broke away early on in it‘s development and then founded The Brotherhood. The novel even puts forward the notion that Goldstein is nothing more than a fabrication created by The Party itself in order to focus the population’s anger away from Oceania’s government and onto a fictitious enemy instead, which is then used as a justification for the further eradication of civil liberties and a build-up of mass-surveillance. This particular idea has been adopted by a number of scholars and geo-political commentators over the years to draw parallels with real-life global events. For example, author and Professor of International Relations at England’s Keele University, Bulent Gokay, states in the book ’September 2001: War, Terror and Judgement’ that, “Goldstein is the Osama Bin Laden in Orwell’s novel, an extremely elusive person who is never seen, never captured, but believed by the leadership of Oceania to be still alive and hatching his conspiracies: perhaps somewhere beyond the sea, under the protection of his foreign paymasters. Since Goldstein is never captured, the battle against his crimes, treacheries, sabotages must never end.”

George Orwell.

Indeed, given the novel’s references to false-flag operations, mind-control, government sponsored brainwashing, unjustified wars, state-created enemies – and all amidst a backdrop of intrusive tele-surveillance – is it any wonder that there are doubts surrounding the commonly-held view that Orwell’s book was based on fictional scenarios that just happened to materialise by sheer coincidence years later? Was the author in fact using the novel to disclose secret information he’d been privy to as an inside member of a hidden elite?
Orwell (real name, Eric Arthur Blair) has been linked to the British socialist think-tank, the Fabian Society. This organisation been accused of developing social-engineering programs that are then used by governments to change the thoughts and behaviour of the population in preparation for a One World state which would relinquish the rights of the individual in exchange for collectivism. Even it’s own website states that the Society “influences political and public thinking through a wide range of publications and events.” In his article, ‘Secret Organisations and Hidden Agendas,’ author and political lecturer G. Edward Griffin claims the Fabian Society’s goal is to “embed collectivism into society without alarm or serious opposition.” When it was formed by what he describes “an elite group of intellectuals” in London in 1884, he claims it was done so “for the purpose of bringing socialism to the world, not quickly by violent, Marxist-Leninist revolution, but slowly and gradually by propaganda, legislation, and quiet infiltration into government, education, and media. The word ‘socialism’ was not to be emphasised. Instead, they would speak of humanitarian benefits such as welfare, medical care, higher wages, and better working conditions. In this way, they planned to accomplish their objective without bloodshed…” Indeed, this is illustrated in two of the Society’s official emblems, one of which displays a picture of a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and the other, a tortoise with the motto, “when I strike, I strike hard.” Additionally, according to it’s website, the Society “derives it’s name from the Roman General Quintus Fabius, known as ‘Cuncator’ from his strategy of delaying his attacks on the invading Carthaginians until the right moment.”

The Fabian Society logos.

The Fabian Society, so claims it’s site, was instrumental in the creation of the London School of Economics after a bequest of £20,000 was left by a member for “propaganda and other purposes.” It adds that the money was used “to found a research institute to provide proof positive of the collectivist ideal.” The Society also laid many of the foundations that led to the birth of the British Labour Party in 1900 and boasts on it’s site that “every Labour Prime Minister from Ramsay MacDonald to Gordon Brown” was/is a member. Other notable names associated with the society include HG Wells, Oscar Wilde, Virginia Woolf, George Bernard Shaw, and current Labour Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer (and Bilderberger) Ed Balls.
Why George Orwell chose to title his seminal work, ’Nineteen-Eighty Four’ is a mystery, although many believe it was alluding to the centenary of the Fabian Society’s formation and warning the world what it’s plans were for the future should it succeed. In a letter written after the novel was published, he stated that ’Nineteen-Eighty Four’ “was NOT intended as an attack on Socialism or on the British Labour Party (of which I am a supporter) but as a show-up of the perversions to which a centralised economy is liable and which have already been partly realised in Communism and Fascism. I do not believe that the kind of society I describe necessarily will arrive, but I believe (allowing of course for the fact that the book is a satire) that something resembling it could arrive. I also believe that totalitarian ideas have taken root in the minds of intellectuals everywhere, and I have tried to draw these ideas out to their logical consequences. The scene of the book is laid out in Britain in order to emphasise that the English-speaking races are not innately better and that totalitarianism, if not fought against, could triumph everywhere.”

George Orwell’s influence on the Muse album ’Resistance’ can also be heard on a track that specifically refers to his super-state Eurasia, although it takes equal inspiration from the book ’The Grand Chessboard’ written by US-based political scientist, Zbigniew Brzezinski. Titled, ‘United States of Eurasia,‘ Matt says the song “is kind of a little bit ironic because it starts with the idea of peace and unification and by the time the song gets to the end, it’s become a scary national anthem to a new superpower like, you know… This kind of place with a paradox: wanting unification, wanting peace but also the fear of creating some kind of a new superpower just more powerful than America, you know. The song is definitely influenced by geopolitics. ‘The Grand Chessboard’ is a book which I read around the time of making the songs so that book definitely had an influence on the song.”
Published in 1998, Brzezinski sets out his formula to prevent the combined continents of Europe and Asia from challenging America’s position as the major global power. In order to achieve this, he proposes the US “put in a terminology that harkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires.” He later explains that the Central Asian nations “are of importance from the standpoint of security and historical ambitions to at least three of their most immediate and more powerful neighbours, namely Russia, Turkey and Iran, with China also signalling an increasing political interest in the region. But the (Central Asian nations) are infinitely more important as a potential economic prize: an enormous concentration of natural gas and oil reserves is located in the region, in addition to important minerals, including gold.” He states that, “America’s primary interest is to help ensure that no single power comes to control this geopolitical space and that the global community has unhindered financial and economic access to it.”
Had these words been written by an academic on the fringes of political science, then it’s likely they would have been ignored and largely forgotten with the passing of time. Brzezinski however, is far from an irrelevance. A notorious and trusted servant of the hidden elite, his long-standing associations with the Council on Foreign Relations, the Bilderberg Group, and the Trilateral Commission (which he co-founded with David Rockefeller) has meant that every word he writes or utters is greeted with a great deal of attention and concern by many of those who make it their business to follow and commentate on the machinations of world affairs. He’s been blamed for effectively creating the Taliban thanks to his secret funding of the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan and Pakistan during the late 1970s when he was President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser. With the financial backing of the CIA and Britain’s MI6, Brzezinski and his cohorts sought to thwart the Soviet Union’s efforts to successfully invade and/or occupy Afghanistan at the time by promoting radical Islamist and anti-Communist forces in the region. When Brzezinski was asked to comment on these events in an interview during the 1990s, he expressed no regrets for his role in having given arms and advice to individuals and organisations that would later be deemed enemies in the ‘War on Terror.’ He said, “regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR it’s Vietnam War. Indeed, for almost ten years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralisation and finally the break-up of the Soviet empire.” He continued, “what is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?” When specifically addressing the issue of Europe in ‘The Grand Chessboard,’ Brzezinski writes, “the central issue for America is how to construct a Europe that is based on the Franco-German connection, a Europe that is viable, that remains linked to the United States, and that widens the scope of the cooperative democratic international system on which the effective exercise of American global primacy so much depends. Hence, it is not a matter of making a choice between France and Germany. Without either France or Germany, there will be no Europe.” He continues, “just one glance at the map of the vast Eurasian landmass underlines the geopolitical significance to America of the European bridgehead – as well as it’s geographic modesty. The preservation of that bridgehead and it’s expansion as the springboard for democracy are directly relevant to America’s security.”

Zbigniew Brzezinski.

In his book, Brzezinski reflects on America’s global power during the late 20th century and in doing so, takes the time to acknowledge the role of the entertainment industry and mass-media in assuring it’s position. He writes, “the American global system emphasises the technique of co-optation to a much greater extent than the earlier imperial systems did. It likewise relies heavily on the indirect exercise of influence on dependent foreign elites, while drawing much benefit from the appeal of it’s democratic principles and institutions. All of the foregoing are reinforced by the massive but intangible impact of the American domination of global communications, popular entertainment, and mass culture and by the potentially very tangible clout of America‘s technological edge and global military reach. Cultural domination has been an underappreciated facet of American global power. Whatever one may think of it’s aesthetic values, America’s mass culture exercises a magnetic appeal, especially on the world’s youth. It’s attraction may be derived from the hedonistic quality of the lifestyle it projects, but it’s global appeal is undeniable. American television programmes and films account for about three-fourths of the global market. American popular music is equally dominant.”

In recent years, a number of concerned political commentators have attempted to highlight comparisons between imperialist proposals put forward in Brzezinski’s book and current world events driven by US foreign policy, especially with regards to the Middle East. This has been fuelled further by allegations that he “handpicked,” “mentored,” and “groomed” Barack Obama when he was a student at Columbia University during the 1980s and then later reportedly advised him on foreign affairs during his race to become President, although both camps at the time denied the two had worked closely together in an official capacity. Critics of Obama during the period of his Presidential campaign (when he was being presented as a fresh young antidote to the years of dissatisfaction under the Bush regime), were suspicious of his supposed links to an apparent globalist such as Brzezinski. In 2008, the historian and author Webster Tarpley argued that the then would-be President was actually a greater danger than George W. Bush. He said, “the guy’s a puppet of the worst circles of imperialism… in other words, he’s interested in the same imperialist project carried out in a much more effective and clever way, although ultimately in a more insane way.” Tarpley added, “and then if you look at these people around him, he’s got the Trilateral Commission through Brzezinski, he’s got the Bilderberger-Group through Joseph Nye. Joseph Nye is the North American Director of the Trilateral Commission and a big wheel of the Bilderberger Group. Joseph Nye writes the books about ‘soft power’, because that’s what we’re talking about. They say: We don’t mean military invasion, we need soft power, we need subversion ideology, cultural warfare, economic warfare and diplomacy, meaning to play one against another divide and conquer and so forth.” Speculation continues as to the true nature of Brzezinski’s relationship with Obama and whether he ever was, or indeed still is, a background manipulator in the administration. In fact, during an interview earlier this year, he himself once again denied any significant connection to the President, but then said, “I have a relationship where from time to time I am able to share my views with him.”
The proposal that Brzezinski presents in ‘The Grand Chessboard’ is perhaps best summed up in the second chapter, ‘The Eurasian Chessboard,’ where he states, “for America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia. For half a millennium, world affairs were dominated by Eurasian powers and peoples who fought with one another for regional domination and reached out for global power. Now a non-Eurasian power is pre-eminent in Eurasia – and America’s global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained. Obviously, that condition is temporary. But its duration, and what follows it, is of critical importance not only to America’s well-being but more generally to international peace.”UNITED STATES OF EURASIAYou and me are the sameWe don’t know or care who’s to blameBut we know that whoever holds the reinsNothing will changeOur cause has gone insane

And these wars, they can’t be wonAnd these wars, they can’t be wonAnd do you want them to go onAnd on and onWhy split these statesWhen there can be only one?

And must we do as we’re told?Must we do as we’re told?

You and me fall in lineTo be punished for unproven crimes!And we know that there is no one we can trust;Our ancient heroes, they are turning to dust!

And these wars, they can’t be wonDoes anyone know or care how they begun?They just promise to go onAnd on and onBut soon we will seeThere can be only one

United States!United States!Of…

Eurasia!… sia!… sia!… sia!

Eurasia!… sia!… sia!… sia!

Eurasia!… sia!… sia!… sia!

————

The sedate piano intro, the warm strings, and the gentle, soft texture of Matt’s vocals at the beginning of the ’United States of Eurasia’ is almost at odds with the sense of cynical despair in the opening lyrics. Before long though, the song bursts out loud with Bellamy’s emotive cries and a stab of eerily precise Queen-style backing harmonies and guitar for good measure, all setting the pace for what is to come. Perhaps in reference to the title, the gradual build-up in the song’s momentum and dramatic scale is periodically ushered in with an Asian /Middle Eastern-flavoured bridge of strings and piano. Beneath them, the drums punch their way onwards, almost in the rhythmic style of a military march. One could perhaps imagine that the band was taking inspiration from a particular page in ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ where Winston Smith recalls the day he looked at the propaganda pictures on the tele-screen and saw endless marching columns of the Eurasian army, or, as he described them, “row after row of solid-looking men with expressionless Asiatic faces, who swam up to the surface of the screen and vanished, to be replaced by others exactly similar.” The song segues into ‘Collateral Damage,’ a short piano-led instrumental based on Frederic Chopin’s ’Nocturne In E-Flat Major, Op.9 No. 2.’ In the background, there’s the sound of children playing followed by an overhead jet-fighter launching a missile.

The artwork to the Muse song ‘United States of Eurasia.’

The ‘United States of Eurasia’ is to some extent a Rock-Opera condensed into four minutes, and one could perhaps even imagine it being performed in an Orwell-influenced musical on Broadway or in the West End of London with lines of dancers all dressed in military uniform marching and chanting to the ending harmonic stabs of “Eura-sssia!” with one arm aloft flags in hand. As Dominic Howard told ‘Q’ magazine in 2009, “not everyone gets the Monty Python aspect to our music but it’s there. There are some serious ideas, but a lot of the musical accompaniment and flourishes are done in a spirit of fun.”

Described by Chris Wolstenholme as “the most ‘Rock‘ track on the album,” ‘Unnatural Selection’ is largely absent of such frills, instead shifting much of the focus onto the primary guitars/drums nucleus of the band. Unlike the title-song of the album which repeatedly states that “love is the resistance,” the lyrics of ‘Unnatural Selection’ finds Matt singing, “I am hungry for unrest. Let’s push this beyond a peaceful protest.” This is an example of the “fine line” that Bellamy claims the album is “teetering on” between choosing to fight The System through passive non-compliance and “kicking a few shop windows in.”UNNATURAL SELECTIONThey’ll laugh as they watch us fall,The lucky don’t care at all,No chance for fate,It’s unnatural selection,I want the truth

I am hungry for some unrest,I want to push this beyond a peaceful protest,I wanna speak in a language that they’ll understand

Dedication to a new age,Is this the end of destruction and rampage?Another chance to erase it then repeat it again

Counterbalance this commotion,We’re not droplets in the ocean, We’re theOcean

They’ll laugh as they watch us fall,The lucky don’t care at all,No chance for fate,It’s unnatural selection,I want the truth

No religion or mind virus,Is there a hope that the facts will ever find us,Just make sure that you are looking out for number 1

I am hungry for some unrest,Let’s push this beyond a peaceful protest,I wanna speak in a language that you will understand

Counterbalance this commotion,We’re not droplets in the ocean, We’re theOcean

They’ll laugh as they watch us crawl,The lucky don’t share at all,No hope for fate, it’s a random chance selection,I want the truth

Try to ride out the storm,Whilst they’ll make you believe, that they are the special ones, (we have not been chosen),Injustice is the norm,You won’t be the first and you know you won’t be the last

Counterbalance this commotion,We’re not droplets in the ocean, We’re theOcean, ocean, ocean

They’ll laugh as they watch us fall,Unlucky, they don’t care at all,No chance for fate,It’s unnatural selection,I want the truth,I want the truth,I want the truth,I want the truth

—————————–
‘The Resistance’ also includes ‘MK Ultra‘ which is based on a subject widely covered on this website. Chris told the ’NME,’ “this was about brainwashing. MK Ultra was a covert CIA mind-control and chemical interrogation programme. It’s a song about losing control of your own destiny. Because you’re not in control of your own mind.” Also worth noting is the 12-minute-plus epic, ‘Exogenesis: Symphony.’ Dominic says, “the song is about leaving this destructive planet we’ve created, leaving it behind to go and populate somewhere else in the universe.”

The Orwellian theme that pervaded throughout the album was translated onto the live stage for the band’s subsequent world tour. For the arena dates, three huge semi-transparent LED pillars towered over the audiences. These constructs were based on Oceania’s government ministries which were housed in 300-metre high pyramids. For the stadium segment, a triangular-shaped structure covered in video-screens was used which Matt said was based on ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ and also the notorious All Seeing Eye symbol.

Muse performing in between their LED towers during the arena segment of ‘The Resistance’ tour at the NIA, Birmingham, UK, November 2009 (click to enlarge).

Muse on the stadium leg of the tour performing on their triangular ‘All Seeing Eye’ structure during June 2010.

To the casual observer, it might appear that it was business as usual in the Muse camp given the Orwellian references on ‘The Resistance’ album and supporting 22-month world tour, but, in reality, the feverish enthusiasm for conspiracy theories that Matt Bellamy was all too keen to share with the music-press only a few years previously was beginning to wane somewhat. During an interview in September 2009 he said, “I’m not so interested in them now, but I definitely was. Conspiracy always stinks of paranoia, but I am genuinely interested in researching the mechanisms behind powerful organisations. I feel I missed so much at school, and there are so many things I want to know, but they weren’t taught to me. Because of that, and because I watch the news and see these things going on in front of me, I’m drawn to research. That can take you down weird paths, towards conspiracy theories and wacky ideas, but that doesn’t mean I believe them.” Then, later that same month, Bellamy expanded on this further during an interview with ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine, and in the process, opened himself up to suspicion amongst the Alternative community. He said, “I’m a curious person, a rational thinker. There is loads of stuff on the internet suggesting 9/11 was an inside job. But that is not my belief.” It was a significant statement considering that only three years earlier he’d been voicing his doubts about the official version of events put forward by the US and UK governments. In October 2006 for example, he told ’CMU Daily,’ “September 11th is clearly an inside job, there’s massive evidence that suggests that it was either allowed to happen or even worse, deliberately made to happen.” So, what instigated this about-turn, and from a man so closely aligned to the Truth Movement? In many respects, 9/11 is the conspiracy that underpins and galvanizes a small but growing fringe of people across the globe who want to see an end to the oncoming threat of a New World Order, as a result, to reject this theory is almost illogical, unless of course, the person doing the rejecting is not what he or she seems. Was it possible that Bellamy and his band-mates had been ‘compromised’ in some way? After all, Muse had become a successful world-class act and Bellamy’s controversial statements on highly delicate issues such as the September 11th attacks were being widely distributed in the mainstream to a mass audience. Other well-known figures in the entertainment industry over the years who’d been equally if not more outspoken against The Powers That Be had either met an untimely death or fallen prey to career-damaging scandals. One popularly held view is that Matt, Chris and Dominic were perhaps secretly pressured to radically change their outlook on 9/11 in order to escape a similar fate. Others have put forward the idea that the band had been corrupted by the trappings of Pop stardom. If this was indeed the case, it certainly wasn’t in evidence when they performed ’Uprising’ at the annual Grammy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles in February 2011 where they collected the gong in the ‘Best Rock Album‘ category for ‘The Resistance.’ Standing within their towering LED pillars, the band played as images flashed across the video-screens of paper money engulfed in flames and bank buildings with their windows smashed in. Perhaps the most interesting sight of all was when Matt sang the line “they will not control us” and formed a pyramid over his eye with his hands. At a time when chunks of the population were being threatened with financial Armageddon following the crash of 2008, this performance brought a slice of the real world into the detached glamorous showbiz environment of the Grammys.

Muse at the 2011 Grammys.

“They will not control us.”

Towards the end of 2011, Muse were back in the studio recording a new album and in December of that year, Chris Wolstenholme reportedly said it felt like he and the band were “drawing a line under a certain period in our career. It feels like it‘s time to move on and do something radically different.” In May 2012, they returned to their hometown in Devon to take part in the Olympic torch relay as part of the run-up to the games later that year, and as a result, once again made themselves the focus of suspicion. The fact that ‘London 2012’ had become mired in fevered internet conspiracy theories ranging from claims the event was organised by malevolent power-hungry Zionists, to speculation a false-flag terrorist catastrophe was planned to take place at the opening or closing ceremony in order to usher in a police-state, would have no doubt been familiar to a seasoned observer such as Matt Bellamy. As such, his willing involvement only served to bolster the growing unease amongst the Alternative community that Bellamy once spoke out for with such fervour. Then, in June, there was more cause for concern when it was announced that a Muse track had been selected as the official song for the Olympics. Titled, ‘Survival,’ Matt reportedly said at the time, “it’s a huge honour to have the track chosen as such a major part of the London 2012 Olympic Games. I wrote it with the games in mind as it expresses a sense of conviction and determination to win.” However, judging by recent comments, it would appear that he wasn’t being entirely honest when claiming it was penned specifically for the event. In the January 2013 edition of ’Q’ magazine he’s quoted as saying, “now it’s all over, we can say that the song was really written more about Survivalists. There was this TV show called ‘Doomsday Preppers,’ which was all about these crazy survivalists who think the world is gonna end. The song is basically about that… I was surprised as everybody else was that the song got selected for the Olympics.”

The documentary TV series that Matt refers to is screened by ’National Geographic’ and each episode focuses on a range of different survivalists, or “preppers” as they’re otherwise known as they prepare for the end of civilisation which they believe is close at hand and will be brought about by one of many disasters including financial collapse, overpopulation, terrorist attacks, solar flares, and Global Warming. In the episode, ’It’s Gonna Get Worse,’ San Diego psychiatrist, Bradford Frank talks about the possibility of a killer-flu pandemic which he believes would hit right across America. In order to protect him and his wife and daughter from exposing themselves to the illness in public places when – or if – such an outbreak occurs, he’s stockpiled hundreds of food-cans in his home, and 1,000 pounds of rice because it’s inexpensive, has a long shelf-life and is high in protein. Frank claims he has enough to feed all three of them for up to a year. Additionally, because he fears hospitals will become a hotbed of infection in the wake of a pandemic, he’s also taken advantage of his status as a physician to buy antibiotics, in fact up to $15,000-worth at the time of the documentary’s original screening, and he’s replaced the standard glass windows of his house with bullet-proof ones in order to protect him and his family from any desperate flu-sufferers who’re looking to raid the home of a doctor for life-saving drugs. In the same episode, we see a married couple in Salt Lake City prepping for a peak oil crisis which would lead to a collapse of the power grid and a lack of access to medicines. To counter this, they’ve purchased fish-tank antibiotics from pet-food stores because they’re exactly the same as those prescribed for humans and also freely available to buy over the counter without the need for prescription. The couple have also filtered water from their hot-tub for rationing. Elsewhere in the programme, we can witness the life’s work of retired scientist Bruce Beach who’s built a 10,000ft-square underground nuclear shelter near his home in rural Ontario, Canada. Nicknamed ‘Ark Two,’ it’s made up of 42 school buses and can house up to 500 people. His aim – should a world-shattering war commence – is not only to protect as many people as possible from it‘s effects, but to help rebuild society in it’s aftermath. As such, the shelter’s inhabitants will be largely made up of children. He says it’ll serve as an “underground orphanage, a place where a new generation could be saved… we’re going to say to people: ‘Well, we have room for your children, but we don’t have room for you.’ That’s the nature of life… this is the lifeboat.”

In an episode of the series titled ‘You Shall Not Fear,’ Becky Brown, a single woman in her thirties and based in Salt Lake City, is said to have spent $50,000 on prepping. She believes the US economy will collapse causing the government to forcibly take over. During the programme she says, “they would literally come in with the army and call martial law. The city would look like chaos. The highways and the roads will be shut off because they’re gonna mandate who goes where. We won’t have a water supply. They’re gonna hold the water for the most elite. We’re gonna be left surviving on our own with what we have already.” As a result, she has collected nearly 100 gallons of water for storage and 4,000 servings of long-term food. It just so happens that Becky and her sister Amy are the founders of ‘Grab n Go Food Storage,’ a company that sells a number of emergency supplies including water filtration bottles, and Potassium Iodide capsules which can be taken to protect against radiation exposure such as in the event of a nuclear-nuclear-reactor disaster. Of course, her food storage business is by no means unique. The survival market is blossoming and a number of Alternative broadcasters are happy to publicise them for a price. Alex Jones is perhaps the best known of them all. Just one look at his ‘InfoWars’ website is enough testament to that. There you’ll see advertisements for emergency suppliers such as ‘efoods Direct,’ and also ‘Rising Company’ which sells fallout shelters, steel bunkers and safe rooms.
Although Matt Bellamy believes some of the preppers on the documentary are “crazy,” in general, there does appear to be an increasing sense of unease across the world thanks in part to the banking crash of 2008, and the so-called “austerity measures” within the EU countries which have led to mass riots and demonstrations. And what about fears of a natural disaster? In 2010, NASA warned that a peak in the sun’s magnetic energy cycle could lead to a solar storm next year which would knock out electricity grids around the Earth for hours, days or even months bringing the planet to a virtual standstill. Politicians and experts have met to discuss these concerns and how to protect the world against this threat when or if it happens.
According to the ‘Doomsday Preppers’ documentary, “a recent poll found that 41% of Americans feel that preparing for a disastrous event is more important than saving for retirement, and over half believe some kind of catastrophe will occur in the next ten years.”SURVIVALRace, life’s a raceAnd I am gonna winYes, I am gonna win

And I’ll light the fuseAnd I’ll never loseAnd I choose to surviveWhatever it takes

————————-
It’s hardly surprising that Muse performed ‘Survival’ at the closing ceremony of the Olympics given that it was the official song for the entire event.
A long-time conspiracy theorist such as Bellamy would’ve also been aware of the occult symbolism going on all around him that night.

** During the ceremony, the focus turned to a giant cauldron which gave way to a phoenix…

In his book, ‘The Phoenix: An Illustrated Review of Occultism and Philosophy,’ the revered 33rd Degree FreeMason Manly Palmer Hall states, “among the ancients a fabulous bird called the Phoenix is described by early writers … The Phoenix, it is said, lives for 500 years, and at its death its body opens and the new born Phoenix emerges. Because of this symbolism, the Phoenix is generally regarded as representing immortality and resurrection … The Phoenix is one sign of the secret orders of the ancient world and of the initiate of those orders, for it was common to refer to one who had been accepted into the temples as a man twice-born, or reborn. Wisdom confers a new life, and those who become wise are born again.” In his book, ‘Satan’s Door Revisited,’ self-confessed former Satanist William Schnoebelen writes, “the Phoenix… is believed to be a divine bird going back to Egypt … This Phoenix destroys itself in flames and then rises from the ashes. Most occultists believe that the Phoenix is a symbol of Lucifer who was cast down in flames and who … will one day rise triumphant. This (belief) also relates to the raising of Hiram Abiff, the Masonic ‘Christ’.”

The ceremony was steeped in occult symbols, in fact, far too many to document here. However, it’s worth noting the segment where performers used blocks to build a giant pyramid which they then appeared to hold their arms out in praise to. Given that Muse had spent great time and expense in designing props based on the infamous ‘All Seeing Eye’ for ‘The Resistance Tour’ stage-set, this spectacle would not have been unfamiliar to them…

The Olympic torch relay that Muse participated in roots back to the German games of 1936 created as it was by Carl Diem who was hired by Adolf Hitler to organise the event. It’s based on the ancient Greek mythological figure Prometheus (also known as “The Torch Bearer”) who stole fire for human use from Zeus, King of the Olympian Gods. According to Oxford University classicist Cressida Ryan, the Nazis “wanted a symbolic bridge between ancient Greece and modern Germany. And light is a symbol of purity – the bright, white, pure, stunning light of the ancient Greeks was something that fed into the Aryan myth.” These ideals were ingrained within the Nazis’ ideology-system from it’s earliest days. When an unknown Adolf Hitler joined the party in 1919, it was operating under the name of the German Workers’ Party (known in it’s native language as the ‘Deutsche Arbeiterpartei,’ or ‘DAP’) and had direct links to the occultist organisation, the Thule Society. DAP founders Anton Drexler and Karl Harrer were Thulists themselves acting on the desires of fellow society members who were seeking to establish a political workers’ union. A few months after it’s formation, the DAP changed it’s name to the ‘German National Socialist Party’ (‘Nazi’) in a bid to broaden it’s appeal to larger sections of the German population. Hitler became chairman in 1921. Many of his high-ranking Nazi sidekicks were linked to the Thule Society and the practise of occultism including Rudolf Hess, Heinrich Himmler, and Hermann Goring.

Just four days on from their appearance at the Olympics closing ceremony, Muse were the subject of an intriguing discussion between Alternative radio-host Jack Blood and his special guest, the researcher David Icke who was asked to comment on a clip of an interview said to have been recorded with Matt Bellamy in 2011. In it, the Muse front-man is asked whether he and his band-mates have ever run into trouble for aligning themselves with the fight against the New World Order, to which Matt replies, “it’s the opposite actually, we’re aligning ourselves with the New World Order and I’ve managed to get myself involved into that whole scene. I’ve done a lot of research into it and the more – the deeper you go – the darker you get. You actually realise you actually are one of them. You start to learn the mind-control tricks that these people use, it’s very, very straightforward actually. We’ve actually used those skills in order to help this band become more popular, so, and in the process of doing that you end up becoming one of those, and you end up becoming what you hate, but actually, you have a lot more fun. It’s less paranoia and it’s a bit more enjoyable lifestyle.” At this point, Matt asks the interviewer, “are you taking this seriously?” He’s met with the reply, “no.” Amid much laughter, Bellamy answers back, “I will if you will, or I won‘t if you won‘t.” Was Matt merely adding a touch of sarcasm to the proceedings or was he attempting to communicate a serious message under the guise of mild humour? Icke says, “there could be many dynamics going on there. He could be not wanting to come out and say, ‘yes, I actually agree with this’ for fear of ridicule and loss of face with some people… but he did say something very true there, that the methods of manipulation have been used to promote Muse – well, they had to be, ‘cos they’re used to promote all these major bands and these major entertainment people, and in many ways, it is easier in the short term to just accept it and go with it.”
You can hear the Bellamy clip here for yourself as well as more comments from Icke and Jack Blood…

It was four weeks on from this broadcast that Bellamy’s interview with the website ‘Metro’ was published in which he stated that he no longer believed 9/11 was an inside-job and also claimed that his “political views are bit more nuanced now.” Some days later he told ‘The Guardian,’ “I was getting very drawn into obscure conspiracy theories. As time’s moved on I’ve become far more rational and empirical and I’ve managed to focus on slightly more realistic, tangible things.” Matt was speaking ahead of the release of the new Muse album, ‘The 2nd Law’ which included the Olympic song ‘Survival’ and the Dub-step inspired ‘The 2nd Law: Unsustainable’ which had been made available to the public some weeks previously in the form of a video-trailer posted on the internet. The track begins in customary Muse fashion with an orchestral and choir section before a female voice speaking in the style of a news-reporter tells us that “an economy based on endless growth is unsustainable.” Matt told the ‘NME’ the track is “the noise of humanity on a tiny planet in the middle of nothing. Hanging around space would be so peaceful and quiet and suddenly you come to this little blip that’s f*****g chaos! I see it as drifting away from the planet and going into the peacefulness of what actually is gonna happen at the end of it all, which is nothingness.”

‘The 2nd Law’ was released in October this year and at the time of this article’s publication had achieved Top Ten status in at least nineteen countries. There are a number of tracks on it worthy of note, one of which is ‘Animals’ which Matt told BBC News is “probably the most political song” on the album. By the way, it should be noted at this point that ’Conspiro Media’ has gone to great lengths in this extensive article not add it’s name to the long list of music commentators over the years who’ve repeatedly compared Muse to Radiohead. However, the temptation here is too strong to resist. With it’s almost persistent tempo (which, I’m informed, is a “5/4 time signature played to a 4/4 beat”?!), electric guitar-plucked flamenco-style riff, and heartfelt Thom Yorke-esque vocals, ’Animals’ is reminiscent of Radiohead’s ‘Hail to the Thief’ era. Matt says the song is “aimed at the bankers and people who gambled every ones’ money and ended up putting countries in debt.” The track ends with the sound of stockbrokers yelling and shouting. Bellamy has said, “we added the sound of Wall Street traders screaming right before the bell goes. It’s pretty dark how lost in it these people are getting… they sound like a bunch of animals.”

No one could blame the least attentive of listeners from being easily fooled into a false sense of comfort by the dreamy lullaby vibe that dominates the opening bars of the song ’Explorers’ and overlooking the bleak lyrical content as a result. Matt says the track is “about the intense desire to grow and expand – at some point nature will become the minority. I’m not sure if I’m really coming from an environmental thing.” He adds that the song “is where I’m singing about my views on property rights. The idea that corporations can own vast tracts of foreign countries. I’m not sure if the deal went through but, I think it was in Paraguay or Uraguay, the Bush family bought something like a million acres of land, which underneath contains the biggest natural water reservoir in South America. At some point there has to be someone who says: ‘That’s not right.’. Can BP buy Nigeria? At the moment they can. They could buy it and they kick all the natives out, shoot them down or whatever and just say: ‘We own this now.’” There’s a sense of resignation in the lyrics as Bellamy laments the plundering of the planet, informing us that “there’s nothing left for you or for me.”

EXPLORERSOnce I hopedTo seek the new and unknownThis planet’s overrunThere’s nothing left for you or for meDon’t give in, we canWalk through the fieldsAnd feeling nature’s glowBut all the land is ownedThere’s none left for you or for me

Who will win?‘Cause I concede

Free meFree meFree me from this worldI don’t belong hereIt was a mistake imprisoning my soulCan you free meFree me from this world

A world lush in bloomWith rivers running wildThey’ll be re-routed SouthWith none left for you or for meDon’t give inHear the engines roarAnd save our crops from droughtBut when the black gold’s in doubtThere’s none left for you or for me

Fuse helium-3Our last hope

Free meFree meFree me from this worldWe don’t belong hereIt was a mistake imprisoning our soulsCan you free meFree me from this world

Free meI’ll free youFree us from this worldWe don’t belong hereIt was a mistake imprisoning our soulsCan you free meFree me from this world

Running around in circles feeling cagedBy endless rulesCan you free me, free me from this world

Go to sleep

————–

The album’s opening track, ’Supremacy,’ is classic trademark Muse; an operatic, grandiose mini-epic, a shameless excursion into musical excess. It borrows elements from John Barry’s ‘007’ and Led Zeppelin’s ‘Kashmir’ with the subtlety of a sledgehammer and directs it’s energy against the cruel Powers That Be, warning them that “the time, it has come to destroy” their “supremacy.”

SUPREMACYWake to see – your true emancipation is a fantasy.Policies have risen up and overcome the brave.

Greatness dies, unsung and lost, invisible to history.Embedded spies brainwashing our children to be mean.

You don’t have long,I am on to youThe time, it has come to destroy…

Your supremacySupremacy

Your supremacySupremacy

OohOoh

You don’t have long,I am on to youThe time, it has come to destroy…

Your supremacyYour

Supremacy

Yeah, yeah

—————-

During an interview with BBC Radio 6 presenter Mark Radcliffe in August this year, Bellamy delved deeper into what inspired him to name the album after the Second Law of Thermodynamics. He said, “I think it was something that came up during the making of the album, and I think it was – I think there were some certain themes in certain songs that seemed to have some relevance to that and I think there was a lot of songs dealing with things falling apart and how the Second Law of Thermodynamics states that within an isolated energy-system, energy generally decreases and eventually reaches zero and everything’s in chaos, and I think there’s a lot on the album that talks about how life itself is a bit of a conflict against that.” He also referred to the current financial crisis. “You know,” he said, “it’s one of those things that every ones’ feeling at the moment and I think it relates very closely to the Second Law, in that it’s this kind of obsession with endless growth, and at some point the expansion will stop and the only way then is to fall apart and that’s what we’re obviously going through at the moment. And you almost feel like with what’s going on, the only way to actually solve it is to kind of start again – that’s how it feels – ’cos this has been something that’s being going on for quite a long time now and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better.”

‘The 2nd Law’ album.

Before embarking on their latest world tour to promote their new album, the band spoke to journalists about the pyramid that would literally take centre-stage as part of yet another elaborate live spectacle. In September this year Matt Bellamy told ’Metro,’ “we have a symbolic upside-down pyramid suspended over us as we play. It will screen videos and images that relate to the songs. At some point, the pyramid will turn inside out and consume Dom’s drum-kit.” In the same month, he told ’The Guardian,’ “it’s turning the power structure of the world on it’s head.” In an interview with the ’NME’ in October, he expanded further adding that, “a lot of people think the pyramid represents power-structures, you know, in every walk of life. Anything from basic corporate structures with a top-down system where CEOs take all the profit and get paid more than the people at the bottom, which is the kind of down-to-earth version, to the Illuminati, you know. The pyramid seems to represent the power structures of the world, or what some people see as the justice of the world. It can all be summarised by a pyramid. Turning it upside-down is a gesture as to what we think of that. But during the concert it becomes a pyramid and eats the band. Then we escape out of it.”

Muse on tour with their upside-down pyramid (Click to enlarge).

Muse have come a long way since their humble beginnings in Teignmouth and the release of their ’Showbiz’ album in 1999. A Grammy-award winning, best-selling group of global magnitude, they were recently hailed ‘The Best Act in the World Today’ at the annual ‘Q Awards’ ceremony in London.
With the success come the trappings that money and fame inevitably provide and Muse can now access the upper echelons of society that are exclusively inhabited by the privileged and the powerful. Matt Bellamy for example, has now effectively been welcomed into the inner circles of Hollywood Royalty thanks to his relationship with Goldie Hawn’s movie-star daughter Kate Hudson. The pair announced their engagement earlier this year, shortly before the birth of their son, Bingham Hawn “Bing” Bellamy.

Matt and Kate at the ‘Vanity Fair’ Oscar Party (Feb. 2012).

In April, the couple were guests at the prestigious annual Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington DC, an event attended by senior US government officials, members of the Press corps and the President and First Lady. Matt claims he was seated next to General Colin Powell, the former commander of the US Armed Forces who also served as Secretary of State in the George W. Bush administration when the US launched it’s ‘War on Terror’ military campaign against Afghanistan and Iraq. Bellamy says, “Kate and I asked him lots of questions. He was a lovely man and it was a very pleasant conversation, but these guys are hardcore. You ask them questions about the Military-Industrial Complex and they don’t fanny about.” Is it any wonder that Bellamy has become the focus of sceptics who accuse him of effectively selling out his ideals in exchange for the lifestyle he’s become accustomed to, especially when he’s wining and dining with figures who were central players in wars that he rallied against with such passion, most notably on songs he wrote for the ‘Black Holes and Revelations’ album?
Then there’s his involvement in the London 2012 Olympics. It’s difficult to accept the notion that he wouldn’t have been familiar with the news-reports that appeared in the run-up to the games regarding the over-zealous military presence in and around the streets of East London and the numerous allegations, claims and rumours via the Alternative media. One might conclude that all this would have been of little consequence to Bellamy given that his interest in conspiracy theories had dwindled. But what of his appearance at the occult ritual that was the closing ceremony? Matt has acknowledged the hidden power and meaning of the upside-down pyramid that Muse are currently touring the world with and how it can be re-interpreted for the greater good of all, so, what did he make of the phoenix, the cauldron and various other occult symbols that marked the final night of the games and the claims of a number of commentators and researchers that these were a homage to the New World Order dream?
It’s his views concerning 9/11 that perhaps spark the greatest suspicion though. What startling evidence, whose explosive accounts compelled the Muse front-man to conclude categorically that he no longer believed the September 11th attacks to have been an inside job? He’s yet to reveal his sources (as far as this blog is aware). Of course, it’s entirely possible that Bellamy’s controversial about-turn was of his own accord, but ‘Conspiro Media‘ is doubtful thus far. As David Icke expressed earlier, the methods of manipulation that have been used to promote Muse are the same as those employed to support all the major entertainment figures. Is it possible for a band or artist of worldwide prominence to operate within such a system and be truly free to express their views to the fullest, especially with regards to 9/11? Perhaps Matt, Chris and Dominic have discovered first-hand that it would not be in their best interests to pursue this highly contentious issue further in public?

REASONS TO BE DOUBTFUL? (PT. 1):

There’ll be many reading this who’ll undoubtedly be aware of the occult imagery that’s paraded before our eyes by modern-day music artists in countless videos, photo-shoots and album-covers. In fact, it’s now reached a stage where these motifs are bombarding our eyes and our senses to such an extent that they‘ve become a normality. Is it any wonder that the majority of Pop and Rock fans who’re unfamiliar with the hidden meanings behind these symbols fail to notice them and why they’re being used – even when these images have no relevance to the song or artwork they‘re incorporated in? However, as many respected researchers and scholars will testify, these symbols are there for a purpose, regardless of how nonsensical they might appear to the naked eye. The respected scholar Robert Richard Hieronimus, Ph.D. is a leading authority in the study of occultism (and a former guest of ‘Conspiro Media‘). He says, “with symbols there are always multiple levels. Symbols reveal, and they conceal, and that’s why they’re used and that’s why they’re so important. They reveal to those who have eyes to see and ears to hear and they conceal from those who do not have the eyes to see or ears to hear.” It’s said that powerful yet hidden figures in the music industry with the “eyes to see” use symbols to stamp their mark of ownership on the artists they control and to communicate this subversively with others who also understand the meaning behind the imagery. The photos below would perhaps suggest that Matt Bellamy is one of those who’s been bought and paid for?

Many of the symbols that are used hark back to the days of Ancient Egypt, an era and a culture that those in the Hidden Halls of Power are said to treat with the utmost reverence thanks to their links with secret societies and fraternal orders. The renowned 33rd Degree Mason and mystic, Manly Palmer Hall writes in his 1928 book, ‘The Secret Teachings of All Ages,’ “the philosophic power of Freemasonry lies in it’s symbols, it’s priceless heritage form the Mystery Schools of Antiquity.”

Below, we see Bellamy in a common pose that’s been adopted by many famous musicians and performers. It’s said to be a direct reference to the ancient Egyptian deity Horus who was forever symbolised in picture-form as an eye…

Matt and the Eye of Horus

It could also refer to the All Seeing Eye on top of the pyramid perhaps?

In the next shots, Matt appears to be making the Sign of the Horns. Of course, this symbol is also interpreted to signify ‘love’ – especially when the thumb is disconnected from the middle and ring fingers.

In the following photo we see Muse standing on or around a checkerboard floor – a classic Freemasonic symbol…

You can see more examples here courtesy of the blog, ‘Pseudo-Occult Media’:

According to the 19th century American Freemason and historian Albert G. Mackey, the so-called ‘Mosaic Pavement,’ “consists properly of many little stones of different colours united together in patterns to imitate a painting. It was much practiced among the Romans, who called it ‘museum,’ whence the Italians get their ‘musaico‘, the French their ‘mosaique,’ and we our ‘mosaics.’ The idea that the work is derived from the fact that Moses used a pavement of coloured stones in the tabernacle has been long since exploded by etymologists. The Masonic tradition is that the floor of the Temple of Solomon was decorated with a mosaic pavement of black and white stones. There is no historical evidence to substantiate this statement. The Talmud informs us that there was such a pavement in the Conclave where the Grand Sanhedrin held its sessions. By a little torsion of historical accuracy, the Freemasons have asserted that the ground floor of the Temple was a mosaic pavement, and hence as the Lodge is a representation of the Temple, that the floor of the Lodge should also be of the same pattern. The mosaic pavement is an old symbol of the Order. It is met with in the earliest Rituals of the eighteenth century. It is classed among the ornaments of the Lodge in combination with the indented tassel and the blazing star. Its parti-coloured stones of black and white have been readily and appropriately interpreted as symbols of the evil and good of human life.”

In the early 1920s, the English Freemason W.L. Wilmshurst wrote, “the floor, or groundwork of the Lodge, a chequer-work of black and white squares, denotes the dual quality of everything connected with terrestrial life and the physical groundwork of human nature – the mortal body and its appetites and affections. Everything material is characterised by inextricably interblended good and evil, light and shade, joy and sorrow, positive and negative. What is good for me may be evil for you; pleasure is generated from pain and ultimately degenerates into pain again; what it is right to do at one moment may be wrong the next; I am intellectually exalted today and tomorrow correspondingly depressed and benighted: The dualism of these opposites governs us in everything, and experience of it is prescribed for us until such time as, having learned and out­grown its lesson, we are ready for advancement to a condition where we outgrow the sense of this chequer-work existence and those opposites cease to be perceived as opposites, but are realized as a unity or synthesis. To find that unity or synthesis is to know the peace which passes understanding ­ i.e. which surpasses our present experience, because in it the darkness and the light are both alike, and our present concepts of good and evil, joy and pain, are transcended and found sublimated in a condition combining both. And this lofty condition is represented by the indented or tesselated border skirting the black and white chequer-work, even as the Divine Presence and Providence surrounds and embraces our temporal organisms in which those opposites are inherent.”

Occult symbols possess a multiple level of meanings and can either be used for good or bad intent. It’s possible that Bellamy is attempting to convey a positive vibe?
The above images are interesting because we can be fairly certain the Muse front-man knew what he was involving himself in.

Or perhaps not?…

REASONS TO BE DOUBTFUL? (PT. 2):

Any one baffled by some of the accounts in the latter half of this extensive article in which we find Matt dismissing conspiracy theories but at the same time apparently embracing the power of the pyramid, or playing a central role in ‘London 2012,’ or indeed dramatically changing his views on 9/11, might be interested to entertain the possibility that the Muse front-man is not in full control of his mind? In a March 2001 ‘NME’ article titled ’Are Muse Cracking Up,’ Matt said, “I’ve got a problem with drinking water. I’m not very good at it. When I first went out on tour I used to get dehydrated and I used to get these really bad headaches… I didn’t realise that it was because I wasn’t drinking. I remember I was having these strange hallucinations of this triangular blade, really silver metallic, razor sharp. I was in this landscape, completely arid, grey, dead, with an endless horizon; it’s like a bigger planet than this one because the horizon was so flat and it went on forever. The sky was baking blue, burning heat and I was in there trying to dodge these blades that were flying everywhere. One would always go and cut me right in there. And it wouldn’t cut my head, it’d just sort of go in and I could feel it cutting into my brain. It wouldn’t damage the exterior of my head. I used to have that recurring, it seemed like more than a dream to me, it seemed like it was really happening; it was with me during the day, travelling on planes, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I saw a programme on TV one night, and they were talking about Psywar, psychological warfare and the influences that governments have had over their populations in order to make them believe they’re having a war for the right reasons, things like that. How they can use mobile phones, they can use the microwaves inside the things to do stuff to us. I thought that was what was happening… I went through a number of different theories. It got to the point where I was thinking that maybe that’s what real life is like and this is all a dream. Then I thought it was one of the number of phobias I had and then I went to the doctor and he told me to drink more water and that was that.” So… problem solved? Perhaps. But, what if Bellamy’s initial fears that his mind was effectively being tampered with via mobile phone signals was actually closer to the truth? According to the clinician and researcher Colin A. Ross MD in his book ‘Bluebird: Deliberate Creation of Multiple Personality by Psychiatrists’…

A declassified CIA document dated 7th January 1953 with a section heading ‘Outline of Special H Cases’ describes the creation of multiple personality in two 19-year old girls. ‘H’ is shorthand for hypnotic, hypnotized, or hypnotism in these documents:“These subjects have clearly demonstrated that they can pass from a fully awake state to a deep H controlled state … by telephone, by receiving written matter, or by the use of code, signal, or words and that control of those hypnotized can be passed from one individual to another without great difficulty. It has also been shown by experimentation with these girls that they can act as unwilling couriers for information purposes.”

(Above, two pages from the documents… CLICK TO ENLARGE)

Of course, it’s entirely possible that Bellamy was in fact suffering from symptoms brought about from dehydration as he claims. It’s also worth noting that the singer was taking copious amounts of hallucinogenic drugs at the time and his headaches and visions might’ve been a direct cause of this. A 2002 ‘Kerrang!’ article reported that Bellamy had “taken fistfuls of mushrooms over the years, not as a weekly routine, but as a bi-annual binge.” In 2001 Matt recalled one particular day during the recording of the ‘Origin of Symmetry’ album when he saw the mushroom in his hand morph into a squirming worm. He said, “we were recording in Ridge Farm studios. We finished the first five songs for the album and then we woke up in the morning and there was this field full of mushrooms right next to the studio. So we ate them all. We had to have everything remixed because we were all in a jacuzzi together eating maggots.”
It’s perhaps interesting at this point to note the findings of a team of researchers at the John Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. They claim that one strong dose of magic mushrooms can alter a person’s personality for more than a year, or perhaps even permanently. Their study, which was published last year, focused on a chemical in the drug known as, Psilocybin which encourages ’openness’ and, they state, “encompasses aesthetic appreciation and sensitivity, imagination and fantasy, and broad-minded tolerance of others’ viewpoints and values.” They reached their conclusion after administering one high dose of Psilocybin to 51 volunteers, all of whom had completed a personality questionnaire before taking the chemical, then a month after it, and a further 14 months later. From this, it was found that 30 of them had undergone significant changes in character. Researchers are now investigating whether Psilocybin could be used in future for therapeutic purposes in a bid to help people break out of negative thought patterns, perhaps by combining the chemical with meditation. The lead author of the study, Katherine MacLean Ph.D. is reported to have said, “this suggests that there might be an application of Psilocybin for creativity or more intellectual outcomes that we really haven’t explored at all.” She added, “the domain of openness generally has benefits related to overall intelligence, the ability to think abstractly and creatively and to have an active imagination.” Not everyone greeted the findings with open arms. Dr. Daniel Angres, associate professor of psychiatry at Rush University Medical Centre in Chicago said, “there are safer ways to create profound transcendent experiences, like the use of meditative states… Character can and will deteriorate with the use of substances that have abuse potential over the long run even though initially there may sometimes seem to be positive personality adaptations.” The fact that scientists and researchers are working hard to devise new and effective ways of altering peoples’ minds artificially should be a cause for concern, especially when looking back at recent history. Actually, initial studies into how Psilocybin can be administered as a medical application began as far back as the early 1960s at Harvard University, the very location where the chemical was also being administered in MK-ULTRA experiments during the same time period.
So, is any of this information relevant when studying the life and times of Matt Bellamy? Well, perhaps not, but there might be some of you reading this who would like to pursue it further because there are some interesting tell-tale signs that might lead one to consider the possibility that the Muse front-man is yet another celebrity mind-control casualty.

Bellamy’s revealing 2001 ‘NME’ interview in which he talked about his strange hallucinations and the band’s magic mushroom-fuelled jacuzzi trip during the recording of ’Origin of Symmetry,’ was published just a month after the album’s release, and it was somewhere around this period that Bellamy met and began dating Italian beauty Gaia Polloni, who at the time was training to become a clinical psychologist and was undergoing an internship at a Milan hospital with psychotic patients. If any one was in a position to ‘guide’ and ‘handle’ Bellamy then it was Polloni who remained his girlfriend from early 2001 to December 2009. Fast forward to 2012 and she’s now a fully-fledged clinical psychologist. According to her official website, she “is also an EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) therapist” and “a member of ‘SITCC’ (Italian Society of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy).” It then goes on to state that “combining her personal interest in music and knowledge of psychology, Gaia Polloni has been studying and researching the relationship between music and psychology for the past few years, exploring the ways in which these two universes intersect. In particular, she is interested in the effects that music has on psychopathology (music therapy), in how music can facilitate the expression of emotions and deep feelings,” and… most significantly, “in how writing music and lyrics can be used as a unique tool for delving into our inner world.” … Was Bellamy a ‘controlled’ musical instrument who’d been effectively tuned to lead his fans and admirers in the Alternative community towards a dead-end? Interestingly, Matt’s and Gaia’s relationship spanned an era in his life when he was just beginning to delve into Orwellian themes on ‘Origins of Symmetry’ and it continued right through his fevered ‘conspiracy-theorist’ phase and then ended just three months after he first went public with his revised views on 9/11.

Gaia Polloni

Whilst talking to ‘Rock Sound‘ magazine in 2006, Matt said, “although I’m singing in first person, it’s not necessarily my opinion – it’s a character. I don’t know if there’s a big separation between me and the characters in the songs, but in interviews I’m deliberately building that! I wanted to have the freedom to say whatever I want within songs. I’m character-building to really let out stuff that I want to say.” In a 2000 US radio interview, the renowned MK ULTRA researcher Fritz Springmeier said, “people are familiar with dissociation and how the mind has the ability to function on several tracks. For instance, if you are at a party and engrossed in a conversation with somebody and you are focused on what they are saying, and all of a sudden somebody across the room says your name, and your mind immediately switches and goes ‘oh they are calling me over there,’ well that’s one evidence, and there are other ways to realise that the mind is not one monolithic entity but it is broken up into components. While you were engaged in that conversation with somebody, there was one part of your mind which was still listening to other things. It was a dissociated part of the conscious mind; in other words, it was dissociated from the conscious. You weren’t conscious of that part of your mind that was listening to the rest of the conversation but it was. Hypnosis, trance and dissociation are just different aspects of the same thing. The Illuminati have learned over the centuries how to put people in different mental states and the information is learned in the different states. To access that information best, you need to go back to that particular state.”

Fritz Springmeier again:
“They go a lot further than just using natural dissociation. They have learned how to create amnesia walls within the mind and basically what they are doing to the mind is the same as what we do to computers. In order to make computers functional they had to figure out some way to section off part of the computer’s memory so the user could not access that memory. It had to nest that memory. You will notice that when you reboot your computer, the computer reboots itself with memory that you weren’t able to access. That memory was dissociated – in human terms I guess you could say there is an amnesia wall there. They know how to build walls in the mind to mentally section off the mind – and they do this through trauma. If you get a severe enough trauma what the mind will do in order to continue functioning is dissociate that trauma with an amnesia wall. Let’s say you were in war and your best friend had just gotten blown to smithereens by artillery … his guts are lying out. Your mind may build amnesia walls around this event and you may not be able to remember it. So the worse the trauma, the better the amnesia wall. The Illuminati take a small child about two years old, and they begin traumatising it with the worst traumas that are imaginable so that they can create these amnesia walls. They find these dissociated pieces of the mind which are just like in a sense floppy disks, then they put in their programming to the dissociated parts of the mind as to what they want that part to become. Some of these parts they make into personalities… and then while they are creating these multiple personalities, they are programming them to be exactly what they want them to be.”

According to Springmeier’s book ‘The Illuminati Formula Used to Create an Undetectable Mind-Controlled Slave,’ which he co-wrote with self-confessed former MK ULTRA victim Cisco Wheeler, “there are a number of types of dissociation: amnesia, somnambulistic states, localised paralyses, anesthesias, and hallucinations. Hypnosis can reproduce all of these dissociative states. The mind naturally hypnotises itself under various conditions.”

There’s no evidence to suggest that Matt Bellamy ever suffered any form of extreme trauma during his childhood as is often the desired norm when creating a future mind-controlled slave, but disassociation techniques can also be implemented in later stages of life via a range of methods.

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**FOR THOSE WITH THE “EYES TO SEE”… More symbols…

The video for the single, ‘Invincible’ features Muse embarking on an amusement park ride that takes them on a journey through various events in the history of the world. As they are transported into this fantasy-like reality, a ‘hypnotic spiral’ pattern appears on the doors in front of them.

One of the most common symbols to look out for, is when a suspected mind-controlled performer is photographed with dolls or mannequins, or dressed to look like one. It’s said to symbolise the de-humanisation of the alleged victim. Here we see Bellamy the ‘clothes-horse’ modelling a range of fashion-wear in ‘Spin’ magazine from 2009 whilst partially separated from the rest of his body. This might perhaps signify mental disassociation?

Although the information above is intriguing and perhaps worth considering, it is by no means proof positive that Matt Bellamy is yet another name to add to the long list of alleged music mind-control victims. ‘Conspiro Media’ is merely presenting the facts and data and – as ever – leaving the reader to make up his or her mind up for themselves.

Regardless of whether Matt Bellamy changed his outlook on 9/11 due to the trappings of fame, the pressures of fear or indeed a genuine reappraisal of views is to some extent immaterial. Perhaps it was always inevitable? It’s certainly disappointing, because as a member of one of the biggest bands on the planet, he can reach an audience of millions and there can be no doubt that his efforts in earlier days to highlight the less reported aspects of the September 11th attacks would’ve encouraged a significant number of music fans to explore avenues they perhaps never knew even existed. In fact, the same applies to any manner of suppressed fringe issues that the musician has highlighted over the years. It’s true, his interest in so-called “conspiracy theories” has dipped in recent times, however, it’s still too early to judge to what extent and how this will impact on his musical message in future. What is clear is that he’s lost none of his lyrical bite. The sense of despair and hostility that was evident on tracks on ‘The Resistance’ and ‘Black Holes and Revelations’ can also be heard on ‘The 2nd Law,’ most notably when the Muse front-man aims his disgust at the greedy bankers on ‘Animals’ and sings, “kill yourself… come on and do us all a favour.” Yes, the extreme, less reported areas of conspiracy (HAARP, the ‘Club of Rome,’ MK-ULTRA) might have been put to one side for this album in exchange for more conventional topics such as the world financial crisis, and the environment. But, in an era when so few (if any) well known contemporary acts address issues of global importance, maybe we should be thankful that he remains one of a few singing out against the machinations of the Powers That Be – however restrained or misdirected one might feel it is?

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QUOTES FROM MATT:

** Speaking about David Icke…

“The problem with David Icke, is that he tends to dig a hole for himself the moment he brings lizards into the equation. You know, I’m interested in some berserk things too, but you’ve got to try to talk about the ideas that are possibly not crazy, otherwise you just end up devaluing everything you’re saying.”

‘The Independent’ – September 15th 2006

** Talks about his willingness to incorporate political ideas and current affairs into his music…

“I watch the news and try to gain a deeper understanding of what’s going on in the world and see if I might have something to contribute.”

‘The Telegraph’ – October 4th 2012

** His reaction to American Right-wing activists embracing Muse songs for their own ends, most notably the broadcaster, Glenn Beck…

“In the US, the conspiracy theory sub-culture has been hijacked by the Right to try to take down people like Obama and put forward Right-wing Libertarianism… So yeah, I do find it weird. ‘Uprising’ was requested by so many politicians in America for use in their rallies and we turned them down on a regular basis.”

‘The Observer’ – September 30th 2012

** His views on the death penalty and former President George W. Bush…

“Just imagine an innocent person being killed for something they didn’t do! It’s outrageous and the risk of that happening is enough for me to figure the death penalty isn’t right. Man judging man is a difficult area. Some people think one in every 100 people executed are innocent, you can never be 100 per cent sure with any crime – if there’s that 0.01% of doubt, you can’t go killing people, George Bush ‘killed’ about 300 people – he’s the person who signed the form, he didn’t have to sign it. You were the Governor of Texas, during that period you had the maximum amount of executions, more than any other governor in the history of America. Do you think, within the Christian realm, that God would accept that? Do you think you’re going to go to Heaven?… He’s a good puppet and he says yes to what everyone tells him to do; that’s what everyone loves, all the big people who own all the companies – they all like that; they know they can control him.”

‘Rock Sound’ – 2003

** On God and religion…

“The ideas behind the Bible are probably quite interesting and people that believe the Bible all live their lives in different ways; some of them like George Bush start wars and other people sacrifice everything they’ve got to go and help the third world. Within the Christian faith there’s a wide variety of people who use the word ‘religious’ to justify what they are doing and it can be used for both ends: pure evil and pure good. Either way, anything that is written by a man – he’s just a man isn’t he?”

‘Rock Sound’ – June 21st 2007

“I don’t believe in God, but maybe there’s a part of me that is trying to make music for something that is beyond what I’d ever want to reap any rewards for. It’s difficult in the days we’re in to be that pure about music. When I get in the studio, I reach a moment where I’m sure I’m onto something, and I really want to follow it through. Next thing I know, I’ve got to wrap it up and make a video.”

‘Classic Rock’ – May 1st 2009

** On the environment…

“I’m part of that generation that had ecological concerns instilled into us… At the same time, there’s that tension about whether we should restrict our natural state or push forward and survive against the odds. As a species, we have limited resources but at the same time I don’t want to regress.”

‘Metro’ – September 24th 2012

** Therapy through music…“When I dabble in watching the news and reading about current events I tend to get a future negative view and that’s something I’ve dealt with through music. It’s quite possible I’m slightly paranoid. But I’d say making music is an expression of feelings of helplessness and lack of control that I think a lot of people can relate to.”

‘The Observer’ – September 30th 2012

** Magic Mushrooms…

“I guess the point of doing this is to dig into your subconscious, to experience something that’s not usually on offer. I’m not afraid of seeing something dark and seeing something horrible when I do this. In fact, I think the last time I did mushrooms I was actually looking for that to happen. But, I think it’s a way of connecting with yourself in a way that you can’t do in everyday situations.”

‘Kerrang!’ – June 22nd 2001

** Recalls the night he and his band-mates witnessed UFOs whilst in a hotel swimming pool at the end of the ‘Absolution’ tour in Tuscon, Arizona…

“It was a small, silver sphere moving very fast. Then another one appeared and then they both disappeared upwards so they became so small you could no longer see them. We were unsure what it was, so we phoned up our tour manager who was at the venue about 30 minutes away and got him to go outside with the crew. They could see it too, so I’ve definitely seen a UFO.”

‘Rock Sound’ – January 30th 2008

* Extra-terrestrial intervention…

“I don’t think there are aliens with us now, but I certainly think part of our DNA at least is not from this Earth. There’s a massive void of fossil records – there should be billions of fossils and skeleton structures of all these different stages of Neanderthal, which there aren’t. There’s one or two. I think there was definitely Neanderthal man around but there was a cross pollination-type situation taking place. There’s a rumour that there’s a certain bloodline that is susceptible to possession from this other entity which lives outside our realm of understanding of the three dimensions. It’s the royal bloodline obviously, which goes back a long, long way. Check out those bloodlines!”